


And Then There Were Two

by LostNTheShadows



Series: Changing Light [2]
Category: Lost Boys (1987), Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Horror, Suspense, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-28
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 43,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1999494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostNTheShadows/pseuds/LostNTheShadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detta's having a hard enough time adjusting to vampire life, what with David and Max up her ass and Marko's life on the line thanks to his knee-jerk reaction to turn her without permission.  But now it's David turn to play.  When he finds a beautiful runaway on the beach named Star, life in the cave gets tense and Detta has a bad feeling about the girl.  As if things couldn't get any worse, a little lost boy named Laddie gets stuck in the middle and the group is forced to choose whether he lives or dies, cracking a dividing line between the boys.  The tension becomes too much for Detta so she takes a trip back home to New York to settle her own score and lift at least one weight off of her shoulders.  Too bad New York hands her its own set of problems that she can't run away from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Like Bunnies

“So, what do your books say about us?”

Detta propped herself on her elbow and stared at Marko. The sheet that draped over them both only came waist high, Detta’s bare chest exposed to Marko’s dancing fingers. His arm lay against the bed, his hand close to her stomach, teasing her skin. She didn’t even linger in the lobby of the cave after her first hunt. Marko wanted to ravage her like he wanted to when she was human but couldn’t without risking her life. They could be animals together, tearing at each other, their howls echoing off the cave walls to the dismay of the other boys. Detta slept soundly that day, a sleep she hadn’t known in years. She woke up to her vampire lover on top of her; secured in his own private back room to the cave, ready to go at her again.

Detta looked around the catacomb for the first time since entering it. The mattress they lay on was situated on a piece of jutting rock, creating a makeshift box spring. A curtain of sheer material closed off the tunnel entrance even though it wasn’t needed. This room was set far back enough that no one could get a peek without much effort. Scattered around the naturally occurring shelves were candles of various heights and status of burnt. He had lit them after their early evening play even though it wasn’t necessary. They both could see in the dark as if it were day but the ambiance the candlelight created couldn’t be mimicked with their eyes.

She raised her eyebrow to him. “Us? You mean us,” she motioned between herself and Marko with her free hand, “or vampire us?”

“Vampire us. You’ve done the research.”

“I have.”

“So?”

“Well, aren’t we supposed to be in coffins?”

“Only if you’re a necropheliac. As long as sunlight can’t get through, we can sleep anywhere.”

“Garlic repels.”

“Sure does. Ever kiss anyone with garlic breath?”

“It doesn’t?”

“Garlic will repel anyone in large doses but for us, doesn’t do anything special.”

“Stake through the heart.”

“That will kill anyone.”

“I don’t doubt it. But it’s supposed to be the only surefire way to kill a vampire.”

“Is there more than one way to kill a human?”

“Yes.”

“Then there’s more than one way to kill a vampire. With us you just have to get…creative.”

“Heightened abilities.”

“You can answer that one.”

“Better sex…”

“Now you’re just spitting things out,” Marko growled as he leaned into Detta’s neck.

She laughed and rolled onto her back, letting him climb on top of her.

“Lets go you two!” came David’s voice down the tunnel.

“Five minutes!” Detta yelled back.

“Damn. That’s all, Marko? Shit…” Paul threw down to him.

“What’re you, rabbits or vampires? Lets go!” David yelled to them. “Don’t make me drag you out!”

Detta remembered David’s “test” the night before and she didn’t know if what he said was true or not but the last thing she wanted was for him to see her naked, even if it were an idle threat.

Detta giggled again as Marko nipped at her neck, tasting her blood. “Patience, Marko! Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

“I’m your maker. You must listen to me!” he said in a mock serious voice.

“Right!” Detta threw Marko off of her and stood up, her feet setting flush against the cold stone floor. He lay on his back, looking at her with an upside down head. She pulled up her dress that was bunched on the floor and let out something that sounded like ‘urg’. She held the dress up to her body and turned to Marko. “Does this happen often?”

He righted himself and looked at her dress. The chest was covered with a maroon stain that looked to trickle down the front. He smirked at her. “Feeding can get kind of messy. Two pinpricks in the neck just won’t suffice. Either buy more clothes or get some good detergent.” Marko crawled off the bed and started to dress. “Put it on anyway. I’ll take you home and you can get changed. We’ll seal off your house too so you can sleep there.”

“And you’ll be joining me from time to time, yes?”

“If you’re lucky,” he smirked.

**vVv**

“Did Maria sense anything different with you?” Dwayne asked as he met Detta on her way to the bikes.

She had just been released from a night of work with Max. He seemed rather tense around her, not sure how to act. She even had to reassure him that she was still the same person. He, in turn, reassured her she wasn’t and that, in time, she’d realize that. She felt the same, her personality, her temperament. Some of her memories changed, some just didn’t feel ‘right,’ that these people she saw in her thoughts were something else but other than that, and the obvious vampiric traits, she felt herself. She wasn’t, he had said. She was still too young to see the difference but she would. There would be that one moment where it would all come crashing down and there wouldn’t be anything she could do about it. He was more uneasy around her now than he had been when they first met. Max told her he was the same way with the boys as well, apprehensive about their success. It had actually taken a few years to come around to Paul but he did it in the end. ‘A mere blip on a vampire’s timeline,’ he had said. He had faith in her though, or that’s what he wanted to believe. But only she could quench that belief. It’s all about proving oneself, he’d said. About being able to survive and let no one in on your secret.

Detta looked up to Dwayne as he approached. She thought she saw an inkling of worry wending it’s way to his face but it was fleeting. She shrugged her shoulders. “She didn’t seem to be acting any differently around me. She said I looked ‘better,’ glowing even. But even before I only came in at night because I worked with Max. I haven’t even been to the store during the day, come to think of it.” She raised her eyebrow. “Why? You afraid she’ll catch on? If she hasn’t caught on to you by now, she won’t catch on to me.”

Dwayne frowned at her. “I’m not afraid. She just doesn’t need to know anything.”

“No one does, Dwayne. You think I can’t keep a secret?”

“Marko may know you, but I don’t. Not yet.”

Detta nodded. “Understandable. But know this. Secrets die with me.”

Paul trotted up to her, grabbed her by the hand and spun her around. Getting caught off guard, it took her equilibrium a moment to catch up to her body. Paul draped an arm around her shoulders and guided her over to the bikes. “So you’ve seen this girl, right?”

Detta nodded. “Yup.”

“She hot?”

She laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “She’s pretty. I wouldn’t call her gorgeous but I wouldn’t kick her out of bed either.”

Paul gave a guttural laugh. “You’d have to climb over me to do it, girl!”

Detta shook her head. “You never stop, do you?”

“Nope.”

Detta walked over to the wall that the bikes were parked near, staring wickedly at Marko.

“What?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t say anything.” She fidgeted with her boots before taking them off completely and running her hand along the bottom of her feet. What came off them were tiny grains of something white. It almost looked like salt. “What the hell?”

The three boys looked over to her. Dwayne furrowed his brow slightly, Marko started to climb off of his bike and Paul sniffed, trying to hide a rare serious face.

“How many times we gotta tell you? Brush your feet off when you get off the beach!”

Marko looked back to Paul who was nudging him with his eyes to talk to Detta. He nodded slightly before sitting up on the wall next to her. He didn’t look at her but spoke low. “Next time, keep your voice down. This is easy enough to cover up but there are other…occurrences that might not be. Just brush it off and put your boots back on.”

“What is it?” she asked as she followed his directions.

“Salt,” he whispered, leaning closer to her ear. “Vampires don’t need as much water in their bodies as humans do. When you turn, the water kind of just…evaporates. What’s left is the salt.”

“You’re talking about saline.”

Marko nodded. “Gravity takes it to the lowest point in your body and it makes it’s way out.”

“But why don’t I feel it? These grains aren’t exactly microscopic,” she whispered hoarsely.

He shrugged. “You probably sweat it out. It dries. It sticks. Consider it a vampire detox.”

“How long does this go on for?”

“Not long. The iron in the blood you drink will attract it from time to time but not often. After a while, it’s like stepping in dirt.”

Detta turned to him, her face expressionless. “I hate stepping on dirt.”

He pressed his nose to her’s, looking straight into her eyes. “Deal with it!”

Detta hopped down off the wall and shimmied herself between Marko’s legs, resting a hand on the wall on either side of him. He rested his wrists on her shoulders and looked down at her face. She mouthed the words ‘I’m hungry’ to him and he smirked.

“Patience!” he said as he slid down the wall to stand pressed up against her.

She rolled her eyes as Marko wrapped his arm around her waist and dragged her to his bike, resting her up against him as he sat. She leaned her head back on his shoulder and closed her eyes, feeling a light nip at her neck. She smiled and settled herself into him, letting the sounds of the boardwalk flow through her; the noises still rather intrusive to her newly heightened senses.

“Is that her?” Paul said from a few feet away.

Detta pulled her head up and looked in the direction Paul’s face was pointing. There she saw the unmistakable platinum head of David and next to him was the girl from the previous night. Her hair was a mass of bushy brown curls, her face soft and looking perpetually frightened. Her smile looked innocent, naïve. Her style of dress stood out amongst the potential meals on the boardwalk. She looked almost gyspy-ish, bangles up her left arm, a long flowing, shimmering skirt and a tight top—of course without a bra. Her skin was tanned, darker than last night. She had been out during the day.

“Star,” Detta said as she straightened herself up, moving to sit beside Marko.

“She was at your kill last night?” Dwayne whispered as he walked over.

Detta nodded. “But David said she wouldn’t remember anything…”

Marko shook his head. “I told you before. We can do funny things with human minds. You’ll learn. Trust me.”

Detta looked at him, a slight frown on her face before turning back to David and Star. “He doesn’t seem like the relationship type.”

“He’s not,” Dwayne replied. “But he gets one of these every few years.”

“One of what?” Detta frowned, looking at Dwayne.

“Play things. One of David’s strongest abilities is seduction. He’ll keep her around for a while, might even try to change her but they never work in the end. He always attracts the weak ones.”

“Well, isn’t that obvious? The weaker ones are attracted to that seduction. It’s inevitable,” Detta said, the question written on her face.

She felt Marko shake his head, rolling his eyes. “We’ve tried telling him that. He knows. Believe me. But he’s into dominance. He can’t dominate someone like you, Detta, but someone like her, he could drive a steamroller over.”

“Talking about me again?” David said as he walked up to the group, his hand placed on the small of Star’s back.

Detta cocked an eyebrow. “Aren’t we always?”

“All the more reason for you to stop then, huh?” David returned her look. “This is Star.”

As David introduced her, Detta was stunned at the girl’s lack of recollection. He was right. She really didn’t remember last night. The only memory she could see was her meeting David on the beach. As far as Star was concerned, this was the first time she was meeting Detta. Detta smiled politely, mulling over her own thoughts, not really caring for the girl’s in front of her. From what Dwayne had said, she’d be food in a matter of time anyway so what was the point in building a friendship? She felt trouble from the girl anyway, as if she wasn’t all that accepting. She looked apprehensive standing in front of them and almost hid herself behind David, as if he were going to protect her. Did she feel safe next to him? Was it his doing or were these her own feelings? David always kept himself blocked so it was hard for her to figure out.

She looked at the boys’ faces and they all looked forcibly interested, Paul a little more genuine than the others. The girl didn’t exude a welcome feeling. She probably only reserved that for a select few, David being one of them. Detta looked back to David who was staring down at Star, hunger in his eyes.

“David?” He looked up at Detta, an eyebrow raised. “What’re we doing?”

He smirked, placing a hand on Star’s shoulder, marking his territory. “Taking a walk. Let’s go.”


	2. New Nuisance

“Is he always so…elusive?” Star asked as she sat down next to Detta on the couch, situated in the lobby of the cave. Detta said nothing but merely raised an eyebrow at her. “I mean he wants to know about me, and I’ve talked myself raw but whenever I ask him about himself, the answers, if I even get one, are missing something.” Detta shrugged, not really wanting to converse with Star but she hadn’t bothered her enough to tell her to shut the fuck up. “You’re friends with him, with all of them. What do you think about it?”

Detta heaved a heavy sigh and looked back to Star again, resigning herself to answer her question. “David and I didn’t exactly get off on the right foot so I’m probably the last person to ask what I think about him. As for the other boys,” she glanced quickly around the room, her eyes jumping from figure to figure, “they’re just very protective of themselves. They don’t open up very easily, especially to strangers.”

“Marko opened up to you.”

Detta shook her head. “No, not until…later in the relationship. It took some persuasion and rather…personal events for him to open up to me.”

“I’ve been around a month already and everyone, including you, seems just as cold as when I first came around.”

Detta was growing restless with her, angry. “Well, if that’s how you feel then why don’t you just leave?” Star looked taken aback and Detta cocked her eyebrow to her. “What’s keeping you here if you feel so put out?”

She looked defeated, her body developing a rather deflated look as she relaxed, her shoulders hunching. “David, I guess. I had hoped—”

“Hoped what? That you could change him? Make him come around faster?”

Star frowned at her. “No,” she said flatly. “He’s helped me, put a roof over my head—”

“At great inconvenience to us,” Detta mumbled.

Star didn’t seem to hear. “I just hoped it wouldn’t end, not until I could help myself anyway.”

“Help yourself with what?” Detta asked, her voice filled with disdain.

“Get back on my own two feet, I guess. I kind of stuck myself. I got away from a bad situation at home but now I seem to have hit a dead end.”

“And what did you think David could do for you?”

Star shrugged. “He already gave me a room; that’s more than what anyone else has. I don’t know. Maybe he knows someone that could get me a job.”

Detta laughed a throaty, sinister laugh. “So you’re using him then?”

Star’s eyes widened and she looked affronted. “No! I like him, I do—”

“But…” Detta knew this wasn’t a girl that could help herself. She needed someone else to help her as well.

“No buts. He’s just been so nice, I don’t want it to stop. Nice isn’t something I get often.”

Detta opened her eyes wide in mock shock, sucked on her teeth and then stood up, looking down at Star. “Well, good luck with that,” she said before walking off and out of the cave, into the ocean night.

Moments later she heard the tapping of shoes on stone. Someone was coming out to her. She felt anger. It had to be David. What could he possibly be angry about this time? She continued walking along the wooden bridge until she felt the cool leather material of a gloved hand wrap itself around her arm and tug her back, wrenching her around to face him. His face didn’t hold as much anger as she thought but it was still there.

“Could you not patronize her?” David asked through clenched teeth.

Detta raised an eyebrow, a movement David could see clearly in the moonlight. “I was just asking her some questions, trying to get to know her,” she said snidely.

“She has to relate to someone, Detta. You’re the only girl around here—”

“Oh no. Don’t you dare shirk her off on me. She’s your responsibility! You keep her around us so often we can’t be ourselves! We can’t talk openly about anything, we can’t feed when we want to, we can’t act like ourselves. Damn it, David! Turn her or kill her so we can all move on!”

He only smirked. “You’d hate it if I turned her, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t be the only one.”

“You’re selfish. You like being the only female in the family.”

“Oh that’s bullshit and you know it. It has nothing to do with jealously. She’s just not strong enough. Surely you can feel that too. Christ, David. Stop playing with your potatoes!”

He laughed. “Such witty analogies. But she’s not going anywhere.”

“Then give her a drink. Ease the stress off the rest of us a bit.”

“She can’t know about Max.”

“I know. He’d kill her if she did.” An evil grin spread across Detta’s face.

David grabbed hold of her throat. “Don’t even try. I accepted you, didn’t I?”

Detta sneered. “Reluctantly. But I’m not like her.”

“You ever think that’s why I like her?”

“Don’t kid yourself, David. You don’t like her anymore than the rest of us.”

“No. It’s a different kind of like.”

“Yeah. It’s a dominance thing, a cat and mouse game. So if I were meek like her it’d be you chasing me instead of Marko?”

“Nah. You’re not my type. Take away the history, I probably wouldn’t even have wasted a kill on you.”

“Lucky me.”

He released her throat. “Let me handle this.”

“Don’t keep anything from us, David. You’ve already betrayed your brothers once and Max would want to know.”

He smirked at her before turning to walk away. “I’ll handle it,” he said, his back to her.

“I’m sure you will!” she called after him. “You can take chances, David, as long as you’re the only one paying for them!”

“What’s going on?”

Detta didn’t even see Marko come out of the cave entrance, surely walking past David in the process. He leaned up against the railing next to her.

“His brain is ticking again. He’s plotting something with Star, I just don’t know what.”

Marko exhaled through his nose and righted himself, grabbing on to Detta’s arm and guiding her up the stairs towards the bikes. “You haven’t been around long enough to know David. It’s the same thing every time with him, pretty much the same girl. He doesn’t want an equal. He wants to dominate. It’s wearing Max thin with what he’s doing but they always end up dead in the end anyway. Have to. They won’t go that last step. A couple had even starved to death. When David drained them, there wasn’t enough blood to fill a shot glass.”

Detta gave him a disconcerted look as he guided her onto his bike, he leaning up against it, facing her. “There is a lot of risk doing that.”

Marko nodded. “There is but David’s never failed to remedy the risk.”

“Yet. He may not be human but he’s certainly not infallible.”

Marko smirked, resting a hand on her knee and leaning into her mouth, kissing her lips. Every kiss was like getting shocked, a jolt of electricity flying through their bodies. Their connection was getting stronger. Detta was too young to feel it like he could but Marko; he felt it in the pit of his being. He knew that, somewhere, this wasn’t the first life they’ve shared. She thinks it’s just a dream, déjà vu, but with age will bring wisdom and one day she’ll feel it like he does but maybe she’ll never catch up to him.

“We’re going to your house,” he said, lifting his head from hers and climbing onto his bike, revving the engine. “At least there our space hasn’t been invaded by food that won’t shut up.”

Detta laughed, the shaking of her lungs vibrating through her ribs and to Marko’s back. She felt him breathe in deeply and she moved her arms around his body, her hands resting on his stomach. She rubbed at the skin, loving the feeling that coursed through her body whenever she touched him. She saw pieces of his past when she did this but he never gave her too much. He was patient and so he forced her to be. He rested one of his own hands on top of hers, rubbing the two together, coaxing her arm to wrap around him tighter. She didn’t need to. She wouldn’t fall off but this was a want. She smiled as she rested her chin against the back of his shoulder, feeling him rev the engine again. She jolted seamlessly with the bike as they rode away from the bluff.


	3. Cat and Mouse

The heels of Detta’s boots clicked against the pavement as she walked down the seemingly deserted alley. It seemed darker than it should be, the only light filtering down to her belonged to a few dingy windows above her. She couldn’t tell if people lived there or not, her energy focused on getting back to the cave. She needed more experience, a greater handle on her newfound abilities. Marko could be everywhere at once but Detta, she wasn’t that far removed from being human, thus retaining their standard one-track mind. Occasionally she’d get glimpses of multiple scenes, multiple feelings of multiple people but as soon as she focused on one, the others would fade away or everything would become so jumbled that it’d be indecipherable anyway, everything mixing together.

She looked up and around her but nothing stared back at her. A couple of garbage cans littered the end of the alley, seeping around the corner but that was it for substance. The alley itself was dank, scattered papers about, water dripping from somewhere, crashing against something metal, more than likely the trash can at the opposite end. But then she smiled, the wind carrying one of her newest favorite scents—blood. It was coursing through someone’s veins and he was getting closer.

Detta trod on, the clicking of her boots bouncing off of the brick walls around her. But soon she was followed by a second set of feet tapping against the street. She smirked and quickly swallowed it just before he spoke.

“Hey lady. Got a dime?”

“No,” she replied as she kept walking, trying to hide her smile.

“How about a light?”

“Nope.”

His footsteps quickened while hers remained the same. “How about a couple bucks? I’m hungry.”

“So am I,” she mumbled under her breath, that smile fighting hard to creep onto her face.

“He needs some money, lady.”

The second voice made Detta stop, her hidden smile fading from its recesses. She hadn’t anticipated on two but would have to make due. These men weren’t her first choice for a meal, the dirt on their bodies screaming at her, the stench wafting to her nose. They both looked like they had been on the street for weeks and, by the smell, in a bar for the past few hours. Their blood would buzz her, no doubt. She looked back at the man behind her and then back at the man standing in front of her, both in their thirties, before backing up against the wall. Her senses weren’t what they should be, not yet and chances were she wouldn’t hear the man behind her attack in time, not with the distraction standing in front of her. The last thing she wanted was to have a knife plunged through her heart. Something like that wouldn’t kill Marko but her, she was too young and still too vulnerable.

“I got nothing guys. See? Not even a purse.” She had to test her acting abilities, make an attempt to come off convincing, throwing a hint of worry into her voice.

“We’ll take what we can get,” said the man that was once behind her as he moved himself in front of her while his friend shimmied up next to her.

He drew a switchblade out of his pocket and flicked it out, its steel glinting under the dull light of the windows above. Detta knew her face had to look bored but the men hadn’t responded to it so she just continued on, feebly playing the damsel in distress.

“I told you I don’t have any money.” She squirmed under the man’s weight, feeling just how little effort she didn’t need to put into it. She felt like she could easily lift him away from her but still, she played along.

“I don’t want money now, bitch,” he said, dragging the blade along her face. “Looks like someone’s already gotten to you.”

He let the blade linger over her scar, the one from the accident that felt like it happened a thousand years ago. Her eyes shifted to the blade, she giving her best frantic face, even managing to perspire a little. She batted at the man holding her, desperately trying to hold back her strength. The man next to her laughed and grabbed onto one hand, holding it down while the other man slapped the other away, grabbing it then shoving it behind her back for his friend to grab hold of. He slid the blade down her face, her neck and to her chest, to the cleavage of her breasts created by her dress. She looked at the man, fury etched in her face but behind it was a child’s mocking voice going ‘na na na na na.’ He dragged the blade across the top of her breast, drawing blood. She wailed into the night, making the men laugh. Little did they know it was a cry of pleasure, not pain. Detta fought back a shiver as tears leaked down her cheeks.

“Don’t…” she half-heartedly pleaded with the man as he slid his fingers down her thigh to the hem of her dress, slowly dragging it up.

“Begging ain’t going to get you nothing, bitch,” the friend said.

“You ain’t got not money for me but you got your pussy,” the other cackled.

He started tugging at her underwear when she heard it, that familiar squeal of flying bats. It was Marko and right on time. The men didn’t seem to hear anything until the thunk of Marko’s boots against the pavement echoed down the alley. The friend turned, squinting through the darkness trying to see the intruder. By the time he did catch hold of something, he was too late. Marko had grabbed him and dragged him into the shadows. The man holding her to the wall looked off into that direction but couldn’t see anything. He could only hear his friend’s gurgled screams as they grew quieter and quieter. He looked back towards Detta, still held firmly under his knife and nearly choked on his tongue. What he was looking upon was no longer the vulnerable girl he was preying on but a cruel-looking vampire that was ready to prey on him.

She smiled, her fangs ready to breach his skin. “Who’s the victim now, bitch?”

Her face contorted into a look of rage before she lunged at him, her movements too fast for his. She tore into his neck, tasting his alcohol-fettered blood pour down her throat. He flailed and screamed as he was drained but his cries for help fell on deaf ears.

She drank greedily, reveling in the fading life of the man clamped by her teeth. She felt a hand on her waist, then another mouth clamped onto the neck next to hers. The life rushed out of the would-be rapist twice as fast and when his heart beat that last pump, Detta and Marko simultaneously released their bite. They had fed together, a symbol of vampiric love and the undead version of foreplay. Before either could raise their heads from the corpse, Marko’s mouth latched onto Detta’s, kissing her deeply, savoring the taste of blood in her mouth. Growls rumbled in his throat, the animal in him dominant. They were still both animals, their fangs still drawn, their faces transformed.

Marko’s mouth slid down her neck, removing all traces of that man’s blood. He found the gash on her breast, still oozing blood purely by Detta’s will to have Marko drink from it, not having it close a moment sooner. His tongue ran the length of the wound, burrowing deep into its core. Then he bit, hard and deep, into her breast, taking blood from her that the wound wasn’t giving him.

She howled in ecstasy, her roars of pleasure echoing down the alley much like the men’s screams of death did. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and lifted herself up, wrapping her legs around his waist. He backed her against the wall, throwing her into it with such force that it would have broken a human’s back but it only made Detta tear at his skin as Marko drank deeper from her breast. His hand fumbled its way under her dress until it found her panties, ripping them off and tossing them to the side, leaving her exposed to his want.

He looked up at her as he unzipped his pants, letting them fall to his knees. He licked her lips for her before diving into her mouth again, taking her breath away, if she even had it. With their mouths together, he positioned himself and lunged into her, thrusting as deeply as he could go. Detta threw her head back in a fit of passion, her vampire lover tearing her apart from the inside. She called out for it, begging for him to go harder.

“Make me bleed and lick my wounds,” she said, whispering hoarsely into his ear.

And he obeyed. The bare skin of her back rubbed against the brick, shredding her shoulder blades. Her blood was starting to smear itself on her body. With each wail she let loose, Marko thrust harder, his moans and yells echoing back to Detta, feeding their vicious fucking cycle. He came in her, forcing his life into her and she fought back, her own pulsating orgasm making him quiver. But there would be no children borne of this moment, nor any other. It was a blessing and a burden to Detta. Like most women she had hoped for children at some point but it was a sacrifice she made in order to protect herself. A small price to pay.

Marko let her down from his grip, his first gentle movement since arriving on the scene. He caressed her body, running his fingers along the now rapidly healing cut on her breast. She placed a hand on his cheek and smiled.

“Your timing is spot on.”

“I told you they’d take the bait.”

“A defenseless girl walking alone in an alley. Then my knight in shining armor swoops in to rescue me. Literally,” she said, smirking.

“You didn’t need me. You could have handled these two.”

“Damn right!” she said, playfully pushing his chest. “If you hadn’t shown up, I wouldn’t need to feed again. You stole my dinner, you hog!”

He smirked and kissed her, hitching up his pants before walking over to the bodies. “You know you enjoyed it. I didn’t hear you complaining.”

“Because I wasn’t. As if I’d complain about that. Right!”

Marko let out a throaty laugh. “I thought so.”

“So that burst…you know…would that happen every time we feed together?”

He looked up from his tidying and over at Detta. “Knowing us? Yes. We’re connected, Detta. Something other than this vampire thing.”

“I know.”

“I just haven’t figured it out yet. We just can’t feed together like that around the boys. Not unless you’d like an audience.”

A sly smile spread over Detta’s face. “I just might.”

“Ah, knowing them, they’d want to join. Face it, Detta. You’re not difficult to look at and even though they’re vampires, they are still guys.”

“Ooo, jealous are we?”

Marko looked into her eyes. “Yes.”

She shrugged. “At least you’re honest.” Detta watched as Marko gathered the bodies to clear the alley, waiting a few minutes before speaking again. “Marko…would it be the same if I fed with someone else? One of the other boys, one I’m not attached to?”

Marko looked at her, a face full of disgust that dropped quickly to a softer image, realizing that she was genuinely asking a question. “Would you let Paul do down on you?” Detta’s words stuck in her throat, not knowing what to say. “Would you go down on Dwayne?”

“Of course not!” she finally sputtered.

He gave her an endearing smile. “Then you wouldn’t feed with them either. Hunting with them is one thing but feeding like we did, no. It’s vampire cheating.”

“I would never—”

“I know. You were just asking. Just so you know, I still have unanswered questions.”

Detta raised an eyebrow. “Lovely. I guess there isn’t a manual somewhere, huh?”

Marko laughed, carrying one body over his shoulder, the other dragging behind him. “Go hunt. You’re still hungry.” She smiled at him. “I need to get rid of these. At the top of our ‘to do’ list is teach you how to fly so you can clean off your own plate. I’ll meet you by my bike at the carousel. We can head back when we’re done.”


	4. Tired and Testy

“What’s on your dress?” Star asked softly as Detta and Marko entered the cave.

Detta gave her a jaded look. “Well hello to you to.” Star’s eyes fell to her hands and Detta looked down at her dress, seeing blood smeared on the fabric. “Kool Aid. Guess I spilled some,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders.

Star looked up at them again, her face worried, but didn’t say anything. She sat on the couch alone, Paul on the fountain and Dwayne and David in chairs around her. Paul and Dwayne looked apprehensive, David smug, staring after the two as they came in.

“You need to stop drooling on yourself,” Paul called after her, an anxious look on his face that was feebly hidden underneath a small smile.

Detta smiled back. “I’ll try.”

Marko clamped onto her wrist and guided her to their back room of the cave so she could change her dress.

“There’s never going to be a way to keep myself clean, is there?” she said, removing her dress, standing in front of Marko in nothing but her boots. “Hand me a dress, please?”

“Probably not,” he answered, grabbing one of the dresses draped over a jutting piece of stone. “When you feed, that’s all you think about. Being tidy is the last thing on your mind when all you know is blood. It’s only after that you realize that you’re smeared in it.”

He held the dress out for her to grab but yanked it back when she reached for it. She rolled her eyes and held out her hand, waiting for Marko to hand her the dress.

“What’s going on out there anyway?” she asked, nodding to the entrance of their tunnel.

Marko instinctively looked as if the scene were just before them. “My guess, tonight’s Star’s night.”

“He’s not going to turn her.”

“Not like I turned you, no. The bottle.”

“What bo…wait, the one he tried to get me to drink from the first time you brought me here?”

Marko nodded, the dress still held firmly in his hand, shaking it slightly, taunting her bare body with it.

Detta scoffed. “She’ll be dead in a week. Does Max know about this?”

“Probably. But I think, at this point, he just lets David do it for entertainment. He knows they won’t last.”

“So what’s the point? Why waste the effort?”

Marko shrugged. “I guess to keep David off of Max’s back for a while. He gets restless, like a kid. Gotta have a new toy every so often. He’ll get bored with her eventually, start using her and being obvious about it. He likes to force them to give him a reason to kill them.”

“You think they’ve…”

Marko shook his head. “David won’t fuck a mortal. He’d end up killing her anyway. He likes to have ‘em around for a while so he waits until they’re at least half.”

“What a nice guy. Now can I have my dress?”

He smirked and waved the dress in front of him. “You’re going to have to come and get it.”

Detta marched over to him and yanked it out of his hand but he wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her naked body up against him.

“You are insatiable,” she laughed at him.

“You complaining?”

“Nope. But I know someone that will if we don’t get out to the lobby.”

Marko didn’t answer but slid his hand up her waist, moving it to grasp a breast, his thumb rubbing onto her nipple. Detta let a low growl rumble in her throat as she leaned close to Marko’s mouth and flicked his lips with her tongue. He lowered his face along her jaw, nipping at her skin, slowly easing down her neck. Detta leaned backwards when she realized that Marko wanted to continue lower, her hand wrapped around his neck. His hand pushed up her breast and his mouth found her nipple, sucking and flicking at the tip, sending quakes through Detta’s body. She ran her fingers through his hair, grabbing onto it tightly, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

But before either could continue further, a resounding ‘get out here now!’ bounded into them from the lobby, the sound reverberating off of the rocks. Detta’s eyes snapped open and she could feel Marko’s mouth release its hold on her.

She rolled her eyes and while still in her arched position, yelled back, “Boo!”

She flung herself up so she was face to face with Marko. She kissed him quickly before shimming out of his arms and throwing her dress on.

“Looks like we’ll have to tuck it back until later, huh?”

“Easy for you to say,” Marko returned, adjusting his pants.

Just before Detta walked out of the tunnel, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back, placing his hands on either side of her face and kissing her deeply. There wasn’t any lust in this kiss. Not this time. It was much deeper. It was something Detta wanted to wade around in, find out more about it but he pulled away, smacking her ass and goading her to walk out of the tunnel.

David rolled his eyes as the two walked into the lobby to join the others. “Ridiculous,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry, did you say jealous?” Detta asked with an air of sarcasm.

He glared at her, giving her a look she recognized to be the same as when they first met. If she had a soul to harvest, she might have been worried. But she could still feel emotion. Having a soul, she always thought, was what controlled that. If becoming a vampire was supposed to be rid of your soul then, according to her own thoughts, she should be emotionless. It was another question she needed to write down on her ‘to ask Marko’ list. But now was not the time.

“About time the rabbits joined us!” Paul laughed to break the lingering silence.

“Rabbits?” Star asked, her face puzzled.

Detta smirked. “We harbor carrots in the back. I’m surprised we’re not orange, actually.”

She moved to the couch that Dwayne had moved to position himself on and sat next to him, propping her feet up on the table in front of her. Marko remained standing nearer to David, a look of knowing anticipation on his face.

Star looked around at the relative strangers surrounding her. Over the last couple months, she hadn’t really gotten to know anyone. Everyone, including David, had closed her off, not willing to accept her. She thought of leaving but where would she go? Where could she go? She had had a definitive place to sleep for a while now and David, albeit painfully slowly, was warming to her more and more. They would go out on their own, not just with the group and she would talk to him, pouring her heart out about where she came from. He would give her pieces of information about himself, where he was from, his family, how he came to Santa Carla but it was superficial information. She wanted to know more about him, not just his circumstances. But she could feel him holding out, waiting for something. He wouldn’t touch her either, not in any sexual way. He’d kissed her quite a lot but nothing beyond that. She wasn’t upset. A little frustrated maybe. It’s not like he didn’t seem interested but why the wait? Wasn’t she pretty enough? Star absently ran her hand through her hair, brushing it to the side, her shawl falling from her shoulder, her bare feet starting to get cold. She pulled her legs up underneath herself and covered them with her skirt.

“Glad you could finally join us,” David said snidely to Detta and Marko but kept his eyes trained on Detta.

“Remove the stick from your ass, David. I don’t work on your schedule.”

“Testy.”

“Sick of it!” she said, her eyes wide.

The others remained silent, Star the only one looking between David and Detta.

“Not now,” he returned through clenched teeth. Detta merely rolled her eyes away from him. “Marko, food would be good.”

Detta watched as Marko obediently obeyed David’s command, heading up and out of the entrance to fetch them dinner. She wondered why Marko obeyed so willingly, why all the boys did. She hadn’t been part of their group for that long, not by their standards, and there were dynamics that she didn’t know about yet. She hardly knew about Marko’s history let alone any of the other boys. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she knew more about Star than anyone else, her thoughts anyway. She knew Marko, sure, but his past was a mystery to her. Another thing to add to her ‘ask Marko’ list. It was steadily growing.

“You like it here, Star?” David broke the silence after Marko left.

She gave him a slight smile, wrapping her shawl a little tighter around her shoulders to block out the chill. She shifted her gaze around the cave quickly, her eyes falling upon her own little nook in the wall. She had hung sheer, shimmering pieces of fabric, half-heartedly blocking her area from the rest of the cave. She had a neat pile of clothes in there and a mattress to sleep on, candles around her bed. More than she ever had since she left home.

“I do. It’s strange, though,” she started, her brow furrowing slightly, “how none of you are around during the day.”

David raised his eyebrows at her. “Business as usual. You’ll find out about that soon enough.”

Star shrugged her shoulders. “It’s nice to find other runaways that live off the street.” This elicited laughs from all of them. “What?”

“We’re far from runaways,” Dwayne answered.

“And I own a house across town,” Detta added.

“So what are you guys doing here?” Star looked confused.

“We prefer it here,” David said. “We’re here by choice, not need.”

“But if you could live in a home…”

“This is a home. Just not a conventional one,” David answered her question before she could ask it.

“That’s all I ever wanted,” Star said, looking down at her hands. “Some place, any place, to call home where everyone gets along, where there aren’t any accidents…”

“Why did you leave home, Star?” Detta asked.

She had this image in her head of this prima donna girl that got fed up with not getting her way so she left. She knew it was the wrong image but this girl was too soft, undamaged, to have anything serious happen to her. She could only see some spits of memories jumping through Star’s head; a screaming man, a screaming woman, she was crying, there was a little boy…

Star let out a heavy sigh before speaking. “My step-father killed by little brother.” She looked up at Detta and stared straight into her eyes, daring her to make a snide remark. There weren’t any tears in her eyes, just a sense of loss, an empty hole where a piece of her used to be. “He said it was an accident, that Jason tripped and fell down the stairs but I know better. He never liked him, my stepfather. They never liked each other, even though he was only ten. Jason was the scapegoat for all of Bill’s problems. Thank God he never wore sandals. His toes were twisted from the amount of times Bill stepped on them.

“I was in my room. I heard them fighting. Jason just wanted to go to the park.” Tears started to creep to Star’s eyes but she coughed them back. “But Bill wouldn’t let him go. Next thing I know, there’s thudding down the stairs. I run out and Jason’s on the landing, his head hanging in an inhuman position. And his eyes. Can’t forget those. I see them every time I shut mine. Just staring at nothing. Mom was hysterical; Bill consoled her, one of his few moments of tenderness with her. Her and Jason could have compared notes on bruising. I’m surprised Bill still had a voice after the years of yelling at Mom. She yelled back but not for long. His hand always shut her up.

“After the funeral, he didn’t waste any time in going back to his old ways. Except now I was the scapegoat what with his punching bag dead. So I left. Been gone months now. I shouldn’t have left Mom there but I had to save myself. If she wouldn’t even protect us, wouldn’t protect her son, I was as good as dead. And I’m not ready to die yet.”

There was a stony silence in the room after Star finished. No one quite knew what to say. It was a story no one was expecting. Detta now realized why Star had this air about her that came off as “freed.” She had escaped death once, just like Detta had. The ending was different, of course, but that one circumstance, that they had both eluded their own demise, moved Star up a notch in Detta’s ranks. She was able to relate with her about something, even if it was something terrible. She leaned back on the couch after she realized she had been perched forward, listening to Star’s story intently.

“Gives her a whole new depth,” Dwayne mumbled to her.

Detta looked at him. “But…” she whispered.

“She’s trouble.”

“You feel it too, huh?”

Dwayne nodded and looked down at her before looking over at Paul. He had the same look about his face as he absently tapped his hand on his knee to an invisible beat. He shrugged his shoulders and the three of them turned to David as he began to speak.

“There’s no death here, Star,” he said with a smirk, but an endearing one. A very strange combination. “You don’t need to worry about that anymore.”

Detta felt a surge come from David, a strange mix of elation and anticipation. Star wasn’t as weak as they had all thought, just in the important ways so that David could manipulate her to his advantage. There was a touch more to the story, though. Detta could feel that. Guilt. She blamed herself for her brother’s death. David could feel it too. Hell, he could probably see the entire scene playing out in her head. He had played on that. Perhaps she had already told him the story. Either way, it was her biggest weakness and his biggest target.

“Food!”

Marko hopped down the makeshift stairs at the cave entrance, carrying a few plastic bags stuffed to the brim and balancing four large pizza boxes on one arm. Instinctively Detta stood up to help him since no one else seemed to do so.

“How the hell’d you balance all of this on your bike?” Detta asked as she grabbed the pizza.

“Skills,” was all Marko replied as he set the bags down.

No sooner were they placed on the ground did Paul attack one of the pizza boxes still in Detta’s arms.

“I’m starving!”

“Damn, so am I! Could I put these down please?”

Paul had already grabbed a couple slices of pizza out of the box before Detta had placed them onto a small table in front of her. He managed what she knew to be a ‘thanks’ but what came out of his mouth only sounded like food sliding down his throat. Detta’s brow furrowed and she quirked a smile at him before rummaging in one of the bags for her food. Marko always knew what to get her if Italian was on the menu. And he did. A Styrofoam container of ravioli and sauce was placed at the bottom of the bag. She picked it up, grabbed a fork and reclaimed her seat on the couch next to Dwayne. Marko sat on the fountain nearer to Paul.

There was a ritualistic element to this night. It seemed like it was something that had played out for these boys many times before, some more so than others. Next to Detta, Paul was the youngest and there were only two other girls he had seen. He was remembering them now as he chowed on his pizza. His eyes were open but they had glazed over; they were busy watching the scenes in his head. Two girls, both blondes. Sweet, naïve, neither lived long after their first drink from David’s bottle. The scenes suddenly disappeared and Paul snapped his head towards her. Detta was caught in her prying but instead of giving her a ‘fuck off’ look, Paul’s face merely read ‘that’s it.’ He wanted to share his memories with her, give her a glimpse of things to come, of girls to come and subsequently go. But there was an order, a method to their madness, something that said first this step, then the next. Detta felt that next step coming up.

“Detta, get me my wine.”

She nearly choked on her food as she turned her head towards David. “I’m sorry?”

He raised his eyebrows to her. “My wine.”

She scowled. “Your legs broken?” He sneered at her. “You can’t get up and get it yourself?”

If blood could boil, David’s certainly would have at that moment. His eye twitched and his hands clamped tighter to the arms of his chair. Star looked back and forth between the two, her face riddled with anxiety. You didn’t need to be a vampire to feel the tension that was quickly filling the room. Still, Detta did not move. She did not answer to David’s beck and call. Instead, Dwayne lifted himself from his seat next to her and walked around the back of the couch. Behind it sat a cluster of shelves littered with odd trinkets and whatnots that have collected over the years. But that bottle Detta was able to pick out immediately. It was ornate, covered in gems and faded gold plating. She wondered if they had found it or if it was made for them. Or maybe it was something that Max passed down to them. Maybe that same ritual that was held in her living room revolved around that bottle as well. A couple drops of her own blood were floating in that piece of ornate glass. All of theirs were but it was mostly David’s and Max’s. They were always supposed to be the dominant blood. She didn’t understand why but having Marko as her dominant broke this unspoken law of their group. David and Max were the only ones that really cared but now Marko had to bear her weight. He had held up fine so far and she was still alive so everything seemed to be going ok.

Dwayne handed the bottle to David and rejoined Detta on the couch. David kept his eyes fixed on her, his glare penetrating her. They were going to have words later and she knew it.

His face then changed, looking almost sarcastic. “Wine?”

Detta cocked an eyebrow at him. “You know I don’t like that wine, David. Too bitter for me.”

Her particular emphasis on the word ‘bitter’ stung him and he flinched when Star wasn’t looking. Detta ground her teeth and turned away, looking off into the cave and blindly played with her fingers. She was sick of looking at him.

He rolled his eyes away from her and back towards Star. He leaned forward, holding out the bottle towards her. “Star?”

She looked apprehensively at it and then around at the others in the room. Detta turned her head back, careful to look only at Star and not at David. She felt like an errant teenager but she couldn’t help it. David was acting like a child and she was going to stand her ground. Star looked at the other boys and then directly at her, a hint of pleading in her eyes. Detta could feel David’s eye boring into the side of her head but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him. What was she going to do? Tell Star it was blood and make her run away? She’d be dead and who knows what would happen to Detta. She didn’t even know what to say to her. There weren’t any words of encouragement she could offer, no advice to give. Had any of the girls before her said no? If there had been they surely would have been food before the sun rose.

She sighed while looking at Star. Here was a girl that had hidden strength that she kept buried inside her. She was outwardly weak, frail, looking for a place, for people, that would protect her. That blood was a protection, sure, but it was a death sentence for her. But Detta didn’t know about the other girls, if they were completely weak or showed potential like Star did. From what she felt off of David for that brief moment, Star was a rarity, if not a first. She didn’t know. She didn’t have enough information to know so she just looked at her, rather defeated, giving her an ‘it’s your choice’ look.

Detta looked over at Marko who was staring intently at her. Lost within her own thoughts, she never felt his eyes on her but they were full force now. When she looked at him this feeling of relief came over her. He was worried she was going to say something to Star. His body visibly slackened and he repositioned himself on the fountain, leaning back in a more relaxed, casual manner, and all eyes turned back to Star. They weren’t being inconspicuous about anything. They weren’t trying to be. All except David wanted this to be over.

Star looked back at the bottle and then up at David. “What kind is it?”

David smirked. “California. A local vineyard. A little dry, not everyone’s taste, but it’s still good.”

She hesitated for a moment before reaching out to take the bottle from David. She was going to drink it. Detta could feel it. Star wasn’t good with peer pressure even though the only one pressuring her was David. Granted, none of the others were doing anything to stop it. They were just spectators at a game.

Star fondled the bottle a little, turning it around in her hands, staring at the decorations embedded around it. She stared at the liquid as it swished around inside. It did look strikingly similar to wine. Blood should have grabbed at the glass, left a trail of itself but this didn’t. ‘Vampires have different blood,’ Marko had said. ‘Different properties. We don’t bleed like humans do.’ It wasn’t much information but it was enough of an explanation for the time being. Detta watched as Star discretely sniffed the mouth of the bottle, trying to detect any foreign scent that she should be aware of. After several long moments, Star brought the bottle to her lips and tipped it back, letting the blood within pour down her throat. She brought it back down and handed it back to David.

“You can have more.” Star shook her head and pressed the bottle back to him, wiping her mouth with her fingers. David took it and took a drink himself before corking it and setting it aside. “Is it good?”

Star shrugged her shoulders. “It was alright.”

“You’ve had better.” David smiled as he read her mind.

Star gave him a blushing half-smile, not wanting to say it out loud. “If you say so.”

The tension in the room seemed to thin out, deflate, once Star drank from the blood. The boys seemed to ease up. Paul got up to grab more pizza while Marko and Dwayne finished what they had started eating before.

No longer feeling obligated to be there any longer, Detta stood up and started making her way away from the small crowd. “I need to go to work. I’ll see you all later.”

Marko made to stand up but she quickly shook her head. “I can walk.”

He brushed the crumbs from his hands and shook his head in return. “You’re not walking.”

Detta didn’t protest. She had neither the want nor the energy to and really, to have a few minutes alone with Marko would ease her nerves a bit. They had reached the top of the stairs on the cliff when thumps could be heard on the wood and the stairs began to shake. They both turned around but both were taken by surprise by the charging David. He grabbed onto her throat like a handle on a piece of luggage and brought her to her knees. Marko had been knocked backwards and fell down the top half of the stairs leading to the bikes.

“You will not humiliate me like that again!”

Detta pried at David’s fingers, trying to release their grip. The feeling was uncomfortable. There was no breath to stop but she still maintained that human reaction of gasping for air. She looked into his face and although he wasn’t in his full vampire form, his eyes were blazing yellow. Quick steps could be heard on the wood behind her and David’s grip was released from her neck. He stumbled back in surprise as Marko shoved him away.

“She doesn’t know yet, David!” Marko yelled over the waves crashing below them.

“I am not your fucking lackey, David! I don’t answer to you!” Detta yelled at him, struggling up from her knees.

David lunged for her again but Marko stepped between them, holding his vampire brother back. It was the first time she had ever seen him really stand up for her.

“Stop! I haven’t taught her yet!” Marko struggled against David’s weight.

“I don’t know about your fraternal ways and your rituals and your method of doing things, David. But get over it, kid. Has your head always been this big or is this what getting turned did to you?”

He lunged at her again and managed to swipe at her face, his nails catching her skin and drawing blood. Just as quickly as he lunged, he backed off, no longer flush against Marko. David backed away but still stared intently at Detta, Marko standing as mediator between them.

“You’re a fucking fledgling compared to me, Detta. Remember that. Don’t you dare think you can come in here and change everything to suit you. We have an order here for a reason. And you,” he turned to Marko, “you need to get on teaching her our ways.”

“I have been,” Marko said defiantly.

“Not enough.”

“She’s a vampire, David. Not an encyclopedia. She may not be human but it doesn’t make her perfect. I’m not about to unload everything I know onto her all at once.”

David looked back to Detta and sucked on his check before turning back to Marko. “Her failure rests on your shoulders, Marko. Remember that.”

“How could I forget? You remind me every night. So does Max.”

Detta stepped in front of Marko, putting her in the dangerous position of buffer between him and David. “I will not fail.”

David smirked snidely. “We’ll see.”

He turned and walked back down the stairs towards the cave. Detta remained, her back to Marko, staring out at the water. They stood in silence, not touching, until Marko stepped up to her back and rested the side of his head against hers. She didn’t recoil or force him away. Instead she welcomed him, leaning back into his body, he placing his hands on her waist.

“You still have a lot to learn,” he whispered into her ear.

He could feel her body nod in agreement. “I know,” she replied before she whirled around to face him, staring into his eyes. “But I don’t care what I learn. I will never answer to him. He doesn’t deserve that, not from me.”

Marko nodded in return. “I know.” He knew she would never forgive him for trying to kill her, for that deceiving plot to silence her. And he didn’t blame her but the rules went against that and he didn’t know if there would be room for compromise. But that moment was not the time to worry, not yet. “Come on. Lets get you to work.”


	5. Pilot School

“You’re serious.”

“It’s the only way you’re going to learn.”

“By running off of a cliff?”

“It’s the nudge you need to learn.”

“It’s a nudge off a cliff.”

“Just do it.”

“And what happens if I can’t fly?”

“You can. We all can.”

“Can’t we do this later? When we’re not about to go out?”

“Detta, it’s been months since you’ve turned. Max is ready to throw you off a cliff himself.”

“Then why doesn’t he say anything to me about it?”

“Because he’s still apprehensive. Now stop changing the subject.”

Detta sighed, her arms crossed over her chest, and turned from Marko to the edge of Hudson’s Bluff. “What if Star sees?”

“I’ll know when they’re on their way out. What are you doing?”

Detta stopped in her walk towards the edge of the cliff. “I want to see the drop.”

Marko marched over to her, grabbed her arm and wrenched her back to her starting point. “Dumb move. Just run and jump.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Just do it!” Marko’s voice started to sound impatient.

Detta had to level with him. She would be impatient with herself too if she were in Marko’s shoes. She had been putting off this particular lesson since the beginning, finding excuses as to why she couldn’t do it this night or that. Sometimes she forgot that Max was riding his case about her success. She only saw Max at work. While he hadn’t changed his demeanor towards her there, it was only the boys that went to his house when he called. Marko said it was because of his apprehension of her passing marks as a vampire. He reassured her that Paul went through the same thing. He was made to busy himself for over a year while the three of them met with Max. Paul knew about him, of course, but the meetings were reserved for “qualified” members only.

Detta sighed again and looked out at the cliff. She could feel the waves beating against the rocks below. The mist cast off from the ocean rose and flecked against her face, prickling her skin. The ocean was not considered running water. ‘The Mississippi. What if I needed to go back to New York?’ ‘You’d have to fly. You wouldn’t be able to cross it bodily.’ She closed her eyes and blocked out the natural noise around her, listening only to the air moving in and out of her nose. She hadn’t been nervous in a while, not like this. She ran a hand along the back of her neck, grabbing at the skin, feeling the tension brewing there. She glared out over the emptiness of the cliff, the lighthouse’s eye catching her own every few seconds. It had to be done and it was now or never.

She sighed deeply one last time before she felt her legs start to move independently from her mind. She pounded at the sand, drawing the edge of the cliff nearer. Her footstomps resounded in time with the pounding in her head, the lull behind her eyes. She reached the edge of the cliff and cast off with her leg, launching herself off into the ocean air. Her arms wavered after her legs continued to run. She couldn’t tell if she was floating or falling, the fog around her was so dense. But it wasn’t long before gravity answered for her. Her dress started to billow up and the wind started pouring up at her. Detta flailed frantically, letting out an ear-piercing scream as she fell through the moist fog.

Stop, stop, stop, stop…

She kept thinking it over and over again as she knew she had to be drawing nearer to the rocks below. But soon she realized that her dress had stopped flapping and she stopped screaming to assess the situation. She had, indeed, stopped falling but she definitely wasn’t standing on anything. She felt off-balance. She groped around for something to steady herself on but only air and fog surrounded her. She imagined this was similar to balancing on a high wire, just without the wire. Detta wasn’t sure what to do, just floating aimlessly under the cliff and over the water.

“Ok. This is awkward,” she said to herself. “What the hell do I do now? Marko? Marko!” she shrieked.

In an instant, he was floating in front of her, as if he had been hovering above her watching the entire scene. Detta immediately grabbed onto his shoulders to steady herself, feeling like if she didn’t, she was going to fall over. Marko laughed and grabbed onto her arms in turn, humoring her need for balance.

“Well you got the first part down.”

“The float of death?”

He chuckled. “You’re floating, aren’t you?”

“This is what you guys do? I’ve never been so off-balance before.”

“You’ll get used to it. I promise. It’ll become second nature to you, like walking.”

“I won’t involuntarily fly, will I?” she asked as she looked around them. They seemed to be in their own void, surrounded by nothing but blur.

Marko shrugged. “You might. But you’ll come to control it. Have you ever skateboarded?” Detta cocked an eyebrow at him. Marko arched his own back. “Right. Knew that answer already. Well, it’s just like that, really. You need to kick off to get going and all you need is a slight lean to steer. Here. Try this. Lean to your left.” She did, Marko leaning with her and they started to float left. Marko righted them again and they stopped. “Now to your right.” She leaned and they floated back to what Detta assumed was their starting point.

“How do you just…go?” she asked, moving her hand out in front of her to show Marko what she meant.

He smiled at her before answering her question. “Bring your weight to your shoulders.”

Detta’s face contorted. “What?”

“Imagine you’re weightless, all of it has moved up into your shoulders, lifted up if you will.”

“Imagine my weight towards my head.”

Marko nodded. It was an odd thing to do but she did it anyway. As soon as she did, she started to move. She had leaned forward slightly and officially started to fly. But, having gone too far, she panicked and stopped. He floated over to her and this time she didn’t reach out for balance.

“How did you stop?” he asked.

She turned to him. “I let the weight go, dispersed it.”

He nodded. “You’re catching on quick.”

“And to go down?”

“What do you think?”

Detta imagined her weight in her feet and she started to drift down. She removed the image from her head, letting her weight distribute itself throughout her body, and stopped once again. Marko flew down to meet her, wrapping a hand around the back of her neck and pulling her in for a kiss. He broke apart, his eyes scanning over her face.

“You worry me sometimes,” he said to her.

“You mean you doubt me sometimes,” she corrected him.

He nodded. “I won’t lie to you. There’s a lot resting on you. As much as I care for your life, I care for mine too.”

She looked into his eyes. His truth always lay hidden there in their depths. He couldn’t hide it. “I know. I doubt myself sometimes. But I know what’s riding on my shoulders and I won’t fail because of it. I’ve lost you once already. I won’t lose you again.”

Marko frowned. “What?”

Detta looked taken aback. “What?”

“What did you just say?”

She looked confused but repeated herself anyway. “I know what’s riding on my shoulders and I won’t fail because of it.”

Marko shook his head. “No. After that.”

“Marko, I didn’t say anything after that.”

“Yes you did. You said you’ve lost me once and don’t want to lose me again.”

Detta let out an airy laugh. “That’s cute. But how does that one work?”

Marko was the one that looked confused now. “I don’t know. You said it.”

Detta laughed again, placing her hand on his cheek. “You need to feed, kid. You’re hallucinating. Last I checked, I didn’t know you before I met you.”

Marko’s brow furrowed, his eyes glazing over as they stared into the mist. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, shaking the insanity out of his head. “Must’ve been the wind or something. Can you get up to the cliff? They’re about to come out.”

“I think so. Just don’t leave me.”

Detta refocused her weight to her shoulders and she started to fly upwards, the cliff’s edge coming into sight. Marko set down first, his movements effortless. Detta had to go through the motions to set her feet firmly back on the ground.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be able to do everything without thinking about it. You just need to practice.”

“It’s not so bad, really.”

“I told you it wasn’t.”

“Yeah, well, I’m stubborn.”

“Really…could have fooled me.”

“Did anyone hear that scream before?” Star was descending the stairs as she spoke, looking over at Detta and Marko.

“She still doesn’t know?” Detta whispered to Marko.

“Not yet,” he whispered back. “David likes to wait, let them find out on their own.”

Detta smirked. “Should have figured.” She turned her eyes back towards Star. “What scream?”

Star passed her as she walked to David’s bike. “I thought I heard someone screaming.”

Detta laughed what obviously should have been a fake laugh but Star only smiled back. “That was probably me. Marko likes to scare me every now and then.” She motioned towards Marko who had already mounted his bike.

Star chuckled. “Yeah. These guys are jokers. Paul blasted his boom box when I was right next to it. Scared the hell out of me.”

Detta looked towards Paul and he shrugged, a grin on his face. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“I’ll bet,” Detta replied, her smirk mirroring his.

“Lets go,” David said as he pushed past Detta and mounted his own bike, Star climbing on after him.

Detta glared after him before joining Marko on his and riding off towards town.


	6. Heart Beats No More

“You alright?”

Detta couldn’t help but ask. Star looked confused and just a little ill. Of course, she knew why but Star didn’t. Plus they were out at a club and she didn’t look to be having a good time at all. Detta felt the need to ask for Star was starting to grow on her, however slightly.

The music pumped through their bodies as Detta took a sip from her martini, glancing around the dance floor. David was at the bar; the rest had scattered, hunting. Star looked to her, a forced smile on her face.

“I’m fine.”

Detta looked back to her, her eyebrow raised. “No you’re not.”

Star frowned, caught in her own lie. “No, I’m not. I feel…strange.”

“Strange how?” Detta took another sip from her drink.

“Well, I slept all day today. I never do that.”

“You stay up late last night?”

A slight twinge of pink rose to Star’s cheeks. So half-vampires could still blush. Detta hadn’t been one long enough to find that out. Star laughed nervously and fiddled with her fingers.

“David and I—”

Detta raised her hand to silence her, not needing to hear anymore nor see any of the pictures that were sure to jump into Star’s head. “No need to finish that sentence. You’re probably just…worn out.” Detta smirked at her.

Had she remained mortal after her and Marko first had sex, she probably would have slept for a week. While they had come together once while she was a half-vampire, and the sex was ten times as pleasurable, it hadn’t worn her out but she had felt more satisfied than she had ever been. She had also known what she was on the road to becoming. Star didn’t. For all she knew, David was the greatest lover Star had ever had and just coping with what she felt was enough to wear anyone out that didn’t know its source.

“I guess,” Star replied, not looking all that convinced. “You probably don’t want to hear, but—”

“You’re right, I don’t,” Detta said flatly, cutting her sentence off. The last thing she wanted to hear was Star describe what the sex was like with David.

She was taken aback but skipped over that worry and trotted to another one. She leaned into Detta and whispered, “I can hear things…see things…everything’s so much bolder. And I have this craving for something but I can’t put my finger on what it is.”

Detta wondered if Star could read her thoughts. She was, after all, connected to her but Star didn’t know about it. If she could she probably tossed whatever she saw away, thinking it crazy thoughts and just ignoring them. She didn’t dare delve into Star’s head for fear that she would open herself up. Detta still hadn’t mastered her own mental tools and the last thing she wanted was Star wading around in her head. Besides, if David ever found out, and he would, that Detta was the one that had told Star she was a vampire, who knows what he would do to her. He was restraining himself as it was around her and would probably revel in torturing her if he ever got the chance.

Detta drew the last drops of alcohol from her glass and glanced at Star, a calm look about her face. “It wouldn’t surprise me if David slipped you something.” Star stiffened up, her face tightening. “But I wouldn’t worry about it,” Detta covered. “They won’t hurt you. We all take them.” A smile spread across her face and Star eased slightly, settling back into the booth and taking a sip of her drink.

She smiled up at David as he rejoined them at the table, placing another drink next to Star’s relatively full one and sliding into the booth next to her, placing his arm on top of the seat behind her.

“Where’s your man, Detta?” David asked, snide as always, when he saw that Detta was alone.

She merely shrugged her shoulders. “He’s a big boy, David. He doesn’t need to be tied to my side all night.”

“Isn’t that him?” There was a touch of worry in Star’s voice.

Detta didn’t see him. “Where?”

“Talking to that girl over there.” Star pointed beyond the bar, nearer the dance floor.

Detta followed her finger and found him just where she had said, talking to another girl. Her heart dropped, looking like she was jealous too. No. He wasn’t that stupid. There was a reason for it.

“Bold move. Do I smell a fight brewing?” David murmured into his bottle of beer.

Detta shot an angry look at him and quickly returned her gaze to Marko, resting herself on the back of the booth, looking suave and staring daggers. The girl was oblivious to everyone but him, but Marko felt Detta’s eyes and turned to look at her. A smile spread widely over his face as she cocked an eyebrow at him, releasing one word from her mind, sending it directly to his. _Explain._

She could see him stifle a laugh, hidden by a subtle cough. Still, the girl didn’t waver. He looked over at her quickly, sending her a message back. _Getting some take out. Care to join?_

She had missed it every time because she rarely used her own. Seduction. How easily the prey fell victim to it. While she knew Marko wouldn’t be tempted to hit up a guy in such a manner (he would let her do all the work and come in at the end), the prospect alone of feeding with him, and under such circumstances, aroused her greatly. He flicked his eyes back to her, looking for an answer. A devious smile worked its way across her face as she edged out of the booth, turning to David and Star as she did.

“I’ll catch you guys later.”

Star had a concerned look on her face, probably for their relationship. Detta knew she wasn’t in her head otherwise she would have known. David, on the other hand, was. He feebly hid a smirk behind his bottle as Detta turned to walk towards Marko. On her way, she distinctly heard a ‘lucky guy’ resound through her head to the tune of David’s voice. Detta didn’t turn around but kept her eyes trained on Marko.

She walked up to him and placed her hand on his shoulder, leaning into his body as his arm slid around her waist. She offered a small smile to the smitten girl as shock riddled her face when the girlfriend of her lust interest walked into the picture. Detta looked the girl over, taking her in. They were about the same size, petite, the girl’s breasts a bit fuller than Detta’s. She was pretty, her features soft, full lips, almond-shaped eyes, dark brown hair that fell past her shoulders. She was wearing leggings, an oversized shirt held snugly to her body with a wide belt around her waist, the collar cut out, the shirt hanging off her shoulder baring a defined back and neck and sun-kissed skin. She had been on the beach that day.

Marko’s fingers played along Detta’s body, trying to get past the dress but failing for the time being. “This is Detta,” he offered to the girl.

She felt awkward. The girl didn’t know whether she should run away or shake Detta’s hand. Marko had his seduction on; Detta could feel it. He wanted hers on as well. It was the only way they were going to rope this girl in together. The thing was, she didn’t know how. Should she think herself sexy and people would flock to her? Was there a switch in her mind?

_Draw her in to you. Make her want you._

_How?_

_Just like you would with a guy. Your body will do the rest.?_

Considering she had never attempted to attract a woman before, she felt rather awkward and she could see they were losing their dinner quickly. She acted fast. She reached her hand out and gently brushed her fingers on the bare skin of the girl’s shoulder, attempting to ease her weariness.

“Don’t worry.” Detta smiled innocently yet seductively. “I’m not mad.”

That was enough. She could feel the girl’s tension release itself from her body. She was at ease again, as she had been before Detta walked over. She now felt just as comfortable with her as she did with Marko. It really didn’t take much. Mortals were rather subjective to a vampire’s seduction.

_I told you so._

Detta smiled but kept her eyes fixed on the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Katie.” She looked from Detta to Marko and back with a hungry look in her eyes. She knew just what they wanted. Well, so she thought, and she wasn’t in a position to deny them anything.

She felt it. Marko wanted her to do the talking. “Well, Katie. We were just about to head out. We throw much better parties than this. Want to come?”

Detta stole a glance back to the table. David was keeping Star’s face turned towards him and Paul had joined them in Detta’s absence. It was quick but Paul nonchalantly placed his fist on the table and stuck his thumb up into the air before quickly bringing it down again. Detta stifled raucous laughter that was rising in her throat as Katie answered.

“Sounds good to me.” Her reply was throaty, an attempt to sound sexy. Perhaps it would have worked on a regular guy but not them. Detta knew they both were going to have to work for this meal. But the payoff would be well worth it.

“Can we fit three people on your bike?” Detta asked Marko as they approached it.

“I love motorcycles,” Katie said, her eyes on the bike.

Detta smiled at her. She hoped she wouldn’t talk too much. She didn’t get an intelligent vibe from this girl.

“Put Katie between us; it should work.”

Marko didn’t look at her much but Katie was just as enthralled as she had been in the club. He climbed on first, Katie saddling up behind him followed by Detta, wedging herself between the skull and Katie. She could feel the sex emanating from her as she placed a hand on her knee before Katie wrapped her arms around Marko. What Detta felt in the wake of that touch was deadpan. Nothing. No sensations, no desires, just an empty touch. She was going to have to do some serious acting to get through this.

It should have been a dangerous ride, three people on a bike, but it was only dangerous for Katie though she didn’t know it. The ride to Detta’s house was quick and both her and Marko were anxious to get inside, lest anyone should see them. The trees on either side of the house, however, acted as good barriers.

“You want a drink?” Detta asked Katie as she tossed her jacket on the couch. She already knew Marko’s answer. Katie simply shook her head.

Detta headed up to the loft first, Marko ushering Katie ahead of him. She had no idea how to go about this but she knew this wasn’t Marko’s first time. Granted, he had always fed from both girls in the end, never having a female vampire to feed with. She walked over to Marko and laced her hands around his neck, bringing his face to hers, and kissed him, their tongues intertwining. His hands moved to her ass and grabbed tightly, nearly lifting her from the ground.

_Just let it flow._

His lips moved from her mouth to her neck, teasing her skin with their touch, his tongue flicking at her jugular. He wanted to drink from her but it would have to wait. Marko spun her around and held her back up to his body so she could face Katie who stood there waiting to be brought into the fun. Marko circled his arms around her waist, growling into her ear. Detta leaned back into him, pressing her body against his, nearly forgetting that there was a third party in the room. She looked at the girl and smirked.

“You ever do this before, Katie?”

She shook her head, looking lost, not knowing what to do. She was out of her element but still under the control of the vampiric seduction in the room. Detta could see it on her face. Her emotions were conflicting. She wanted sex but at the same time she wanted to back down, recant her previous acceptance of their invitation to join them. Detta leaned into Marko further while he fed her some information.

_You control the scene._

_Why?_

_I want to see what you do._

_Shouldn’t you lead? You are my master._

_Learn by doing, fledgling. And remind me to come back to you calling me ‘master.’_

Detta smirked, again almost forgetting about the girl in front of them. Their dinner was getting cold. She needed to think, and quickly, just how she wanted this all to play out. The thoughts barely flew when the animal in her began to take over and an urge to play with her food overwhelmed her. There was nothing nice or sexy about this feeling, not to a mortal anyway. She could feel Marko smile. He felt her plan. They couldn’t waste anymore time. Detta turned to the girl and began to walk towards her, touching noses before walking behind her.

“Why don’t you strip for us, Katie?” Detta said in a sultry voice. “Show us what you got.”

“Y—you mean a strip tease?”

Detta chuckled and shook her head. “No. Just strip.”

Katie began to disrobe, tossing her belt and shirt on the floor. She wasn’t wearing a bra. As she removed her leggings, Marko removed his jacket and shirt, taking off his boots before walking to the bed and sitting in the corner, resting nonchalantly against the wall. Detta was still fully clothed. When Katie had finished stripping, she stood in the center of the floor, fully exposed and vulnerable to both of them.

“Very nice,” Detta critiqued, eying the girl from top to bottom. “You work out?”

“S—sometimes. I surf.”

The longer the moment was postponed, the more nervous the girl got. Their seduction had its grip but she was stronger than Marko anticipated. She would break the hold if given the chance but, of course, she wouldn’t get it.

Detta pointed to the bed. “On the bed, go on. Take a seat.”

And she did, scooting herself to the center of the mattress. She jumped when she felt hands on her naked body. Marko had inched forward, wrapping himself around her back. He brushed her hair away from her neck and began caressing the skin with his mouth, nipping at her. She closed her eyes, sinking into the pleasure she must be feeling from his touch alone. Detta kicked off her boots and joined the two on the bed, straddling over Katie’s lap. She grabbed onto the girl’s neck, massaging it while Marko nipped.

“You have any fetishes, Katie?”

“What do you mean?” she moaned as Marko shifted to the other side of her neck.

“You know, hair pulling, spanking, feet, things like that.”

Marko interrupted his own taste test to look at Detta, the fire already in his eyes. Katie would not have liked that look. Thankfully she couldn’t see it. He reached his arms around Katie and grabbed onto Detta’s dress, pulling it over her head and tossing it onto the floor, leaving her in nothing but a small pair of cotton panties.

“I like my hair pulled,” she moaned again, not realizing that Marko had stopped.

“That’s good, Katie. Good. Me? I like pain.” Marko grabbed onto the back of Katie’s head and wrenched it back, holding firmly onto her hair. How Detta loved when he did that to her but judging from the look on Katie’s face, it was a little too much pain.

She released a yelp and her hands immediately went her head, her eyes wide. “What are you doing?” she squealed.

Detta gave an innocent-looking shrug. “You said you liked your hair pulled.”

“Not like that! Ouch!”

But Marko wouldn’t relent. “Go with the flow,” he whispered into her ear.

Katie’s hands were up by her crown, trying to take back some of the hair that Marko was pulling so hard on. She had to try to relieve the pain. It felt like she was about to be scalped. She started to struggle but Marko was one step ahead of her. He had already wrapped his arm around her waist to hold her firm. Katie was going nowhere.

She tried her best to ease the pull but failed miserably. “When is it ever good? Let go!”

Detta sneered and grabbed onto Katie’s face, lurching her head towards her. She could hear strands of hair snapping, knowing that doing that had just yanked some of her hair out. “Look at me!” she snarled.

She could see the fear in Katie’s eyes now. Gone was the passion, the lust. Thoughts of running, screaming for her life, fighting her way out danced in its place. Detta smirked at her, Katie’s thoughts amusing her. “Don’t even try,” she said, shaking her head.

Detta reached her hand out to Katie’s neck. The girl tried to recoil but with nowhere to go and Marko holding her firm, she remained within reach. Her nail skid across the girl’s skin before finding just the right place to dig in. A scream rose in Katie’s throat but Detta quickly threw her hand over her mouth before any noise could escape.

“Quiet or I’ll slit your throat and you won’t be able to say anything.”

Katie was sobbing now, staining Detta’s hands with her tears. It was a strange feeling, the salt and the water playing on her vampire’s skin. She couldn’t quite think of the proper word, perhaps moisturize, that those tears did to her hand. What remained of the human saline in her was probably equivalent to a teardrop or two.

Detta dabbed her fingertips in the blood, squeezing at the wound to draw more out. She brought her fingers up and stared at the mortal blood dripping down her hand. At first she looked at Marko who was staring at the wound hungrily. He had felt her eyes on him and looked up, smiling evilly at her, his face already transformed. She turned her eyes back to Katie who’s own were bloodshot, her cheeks tear-stained. Still looking at her, Detta brought her fingers to her mouth and licked the blood away, savoring in its taste: small traces of alcohol, disease-free, young but not a virgin. Katie wailed behind Detta’s hand, her throat echoing with a trapped scream as Detta licked her hand clean.

“You know what else I like, Katie?” she asked, lapping up the last drops. “Blood.”

Detta looked at her again and Katie started to flail, the pain in her head no longer seeming to matter. Detta was no longer the girl from the bar but this inhuman thing, fangs glistening in the mood lighting. Like the sound of teeth biting into an apple, Marko’s teeth had sunk into Katie. Her body jumped and Detta almost let a scream out of her, nearly losing her grip on her mouth.

Detta leaned down to the other side of her neck, her lips closing in on Katie’s ear. “You should have listened to your parents when they warned you about strangers.” Like Marko, she took a bite of the fruit, keeping her hand over Katie’s mouth for good measure.

She gulped greedily at the blood pouring from the wound she had made and she could feel Marko drinking. She needn’t even move closer to him. Each swallow of blood he took, the closer it drew her in. The pumping of Katie’s heart fell silent and she felt a hand on the back of her head, pulling at her hair. She lifted from the girl’s neck, releasing her hand and letting the head go limp. She felt a mouth on hers as Marko kissed her, pulling at her to bring her closer. She grabbed at his hair, wanting to meld her body with his but there was an obstacle in her way that was currently getting cold. With her lips still attached to Marko’s she climbed off the body and kicked it, letting it slide to the floor. She straddled over Marko as he tore at her skin, streaking her body with her own blood.

Her mouth found his neck and without hesitation, she bit him. He moaned, urging her body to ride him dry. The motion alone was driving both of them insane. Her mouth detached and her hands groped for his jeans, tearing at them frantically. He lifted her up and stood up himself, stepping out of his pants before quickly returning to her. He grabbed her and kissed her again, smearing the remnants of blood from the now-closed scratches on her back across her face. Detta held out a hand to push him away before raking her own talons across her chest, offering herself to him. He lunged at her, his tongue scrambling to gather all the blood. His mouth found a nipple and he began to suck, taking it between his teeth, teasing her. She moaned and pressed into him, holding him strong. His mouth enveloped her breast as he bit into her, the snapping of skin echoing in her ears. Detta wailed and came, her back arching to greet his mouth, his fangs in her, feeding off her.

In an instant, his mouth was one with hers again. She wanted him. No more playing. “Fuck me.” Her voice was pleading.

She could feel his mouth smirk. “Is that what you want?”

She rolled open her eyes and looked at him, both with matching vampire faces. She nodded.

“What do you say?”

She could feel his fingers dancing down her body, winding their way to her most sensitive spot. “Please,” she whispered.

She inhaled sharply as he teased her, probed her. It was agonizing. He dropped his lips to her ear and whispered, “Call me master.”

Detta smiled and bit her lip, still holding firmly onto his hair. “Please, Master. Fuck me already, will you?”

He shook his head, still smirking. “Now that’s not any way to ask.”

In one swift movement, Detta grabbed onto Marko’s shoulders and threw him onto the bed, shimmying out of her underwear and mounting him. “Enough with this teasing shit.”

She ground into him, his hands on her hips guiding her. But her dominant position didn’t last long. He grabbed her shoulders and threw her onto her stomach. She walked up the wall, her palms resting against the cold glaze as he entered her. Slammed her would have been a more appropriate word. Any mortal girl would have been torn in half, and rightly quite literally. But not only did Detta take it, she enjoyed it. She reveled in the pleasure of his pain.

**vVv**

Detta’s fingers twirled into Marko’s hair as his head rested on her bare chest, his hand on her stomach. She looked over at the body that still lay on her bedroom floor and looked back up at the ceiling. She covered his hand with her own and rested it there. He could feel it in her. She was questioning the events of the night.

“You’re not human anymore, Detta. Remember that.”

“Then what am I feeling?”

“They’re not human emotions.”

“I know. There’s a feeling there but it’s empty. I should feel disgusted but I don’t.”

He sighed. “It all comes with it. Most of us have that…defense mechanism if you want to call it that,” he said, propping himself up. “Our remorse, what kept us from killing when we were human, dies. That’s how we survive. You can’t have guilt and still feed.”

“A few keep it?”

“Those are the ones that starve to death.”

“I would never do something like that, lure her here.”

“You’ve changed, Detta, remember? You’re not the you that you remember. The human you is gone. You’ll do what you deem necessary to survive.”

Marko felt a scoff in the bed. “That was hardly necessary, what we did to her,” she said, looking at him.

“But you didn’t think twice about doing it, did you?” Detta said nothing. “You have a whole new set of instincts, new emotions, new features, new you. You’re still very young. Hopefully you’ll adjust.

“Hopefully? Aren’t I?”

“You are…but like I said, you’re still young.”

“Still worried about your own ass, are you?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“If my human emotions are gone, then what is it I feel for you?”

Marko shook his head. “I haven’t figured that one out yet.”

“Love?”

He looked down at her, their eyes meeting. He saw it in her just like she saw it in him; that spark, that flame that he thought died with his mortal self, its light illuminating a history he didn’t know. And in her it ignited with her vampire form, that spark they were both just touching on before she turned.

“Maybe in one form or another.”


	7. Your Mom

Fingers groped for the collar of Detta’s nonexistent shirt and finally settled for her shoulders, grasping tightly, frantically forcing her back against the cold stone of the cave entrance. The breathing was rapid, shallow. Detta could smell fear and panic.

“What the hell is happening to me?” Star’s voice erupted in a hoarse whisper from her throat. She shook Detta, her fingers leaving indents on her skin. “What is this?”

Any mortal would see nothing but blackness but Detta saw everything. Star’s eyes were wild and searching. Something had just happened to her, something that screamed that it wasn’t right. She merely rolled her eyes, knowing that Star could see it, and tried to act as nonchalantly as possible. “What are you talking about?”

There were tears in her eyes now. “I saw that, god damn it, Detta, I saw that look. It’s pitch black! How could I see that?”

Detta shrugged under the weight of Star’s hands, a strength she probably didn’t even know she had. If she had been holding a human like this, he would have been on his knees by now. “Your eyes adjusted?”

Star wasn’t accepting that. “Don’t give me that bullshit!” She released Detta from her grip and walked towards the opening to the lobby. Detta followed slowly, keeping her distance. “When I went to sit up when I woke up this evening, this evening, I couldn’t. You know why?” Detta had dropped down to the lobby floor after Star; her face remained stoic, her arms crossed over her chest, giving Star no answer in the dim light of the candles now around them. “Because I was up against the ceiling that’s what, ten feet up from my bed? I didn’t always have the ability to levitate, Detta. What the hell is this?”

“Where’s David?”

“What?” Star’s face scrunched up, confused at the question.

“Where’s David? He should be the one to answer these questions for you.”

Star let out a short laugh. “Do all of you share just one mouth? One brain? What the hell is wrong with you people? Do you exist just to serve him?” Detta still did not answer. “Well?”

“You need to ask David these questions, not me. I can’t help you.”

She began to walk away but Star caught her arm and swung her around to face her. She was stronger than what Detta gave her credit for. “I’m sick of this.” Star’s tone was eerily sedate considering the situation. “None of you give a shit about me. I’m nothing more than a fuck to David, if that. I deserve some answers here! I’m not asking to be your friend. I know you’d rather impale yourself than do that.” Detta rolled her eyes at the contempt in Star’s voice and shifted her weight. “But I want some answers now or I’m gone.”

Detta smirked before uncrossing her arms. “I told you, ask David. And you’re not going anywhere. You’re stuck with us.”

Detta started to walk away towards her tunnel when she heard Star’s footsteps behind her. “He won’t…he won’t tell me anything.” Detta stopped, keeping her back to Star. “I’ve tried. He says it’s in my head.” She was losing steam. “I know it’s not. You guys are different and I’m becoming like you, aren’t I?” Detta turned around to face her. “It has to do with the wine, doesn’t it? Everything was different after I drank it.” Detta just stared at her. Defeat littered Star’s eyes and the sense of hopelessness was starting to creep in. “How do I fix this?” Her voice was barely over a whisper.

“I don’t know.” Detta could honestly say that, and Star felt it. She hadn’t gone through that sense of not knowing, of unwillingness, fear. She couldn’t sympathize with Star because this was what Detta wanted, and what Marko had wanted. She wasn’t a pawn whereas Star, to David, was just as disposable as a tissue. She felt sorry for her but not because of what she was experiencing in her half-turn.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know and I would tell you to leave but it would be futile.”

“Why? I could run—”

“No, you couldn’t. If you value your life, even at what it’s become, you will stay and grudgingly take what’s coming.”

“What am I waiting for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was this your initiation into their group too?”

Detta shook her head. “No. Not even close.”

“I should be afraid, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes, but there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“And you can’t help me?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Would you if you did?”

It was a question Detta wasn’t expecting and she knew Star wouldn’t wait long enough for her to think on it. “I don’t know. I would be risking my life, and Marko’s, if I did and who knows what else. I may have been around longer than you but I still don’t know all of their…tricks.”

“I am not a tool for someone to use.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“I don’t think you have that option now. That door’s closed.”

“All doors are open. All doors are always open.” Both girls quickly turned their heads towards the cave entrance to see the boys entering, David in the lead. “Our possibilities are endless, Detta. You should know that by now.” He smirked at her as they came closer.

“That’s what my life has become, one endless possibility,” said Detta, the sardonic tone evident.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to be grateful for gifts given to you?” he retorted.

“Looks like your mother skipped out on a few life lessons, didn’t she?”

If his eyes were knives, she would have been run through a dozen times over. She was going to pay for her comment and she knew it, but not in front of Star, not now. Marko walked over to her and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her out of earshot of the crowd.

“Would you watch your mouth?” he snarled through gritted teeth.

“He’s not my mother, Marko, and neither are you. I can speak to him anyway I like.”

He dug his nails into her arm and she winced. He was angrier than she had ever seen him. “I am your maker and you will listen when I tell you something. Don’t you dare walk around here thinking you know everything when you rightly know nothing. The more you shoot your mouth off like that, the more you defy, the shorter your life becomes and, in turn, the shorter mine gets. I’d like to spend more time with you on this earth than in the afterlife so get your shit together, get your arrogant head out of your own ass and listen to me when I tell you something. Think of someone other than yourself for once.”

The last remark went too far and Marko knew it. Detta’s jaw visibly tensed, her eyes boring into Marko with rage and fury unlike she had ever felt. To think her completely selfish when she had bitten her tongue so many times was out of hand. At this comment, she hated him. She hated him for treating her like a child, for making her conform to the man that had tried to kill her on multiple occasions, hired by her own boss. She had had enough. She brought her face close to his, staring straight into his eyes. In a hoarse whisper she said, “Fuck you too.”

She wrenched her arm from his grip, his nails dragging gashes along her skin, blood dripping down her arm. Without looking back, she stormed out of the cave and took off at the entrance, flying wherever the wind decided to take her, as long as it was as far away from there as she could get.

**vVv**

“He’s right, you know.”

The soft, throaty voice carried over on the wind, whispering into her ear. The waves crashed below her as she sat on a jutting rock harpooned into a cliff somewhere north of San Francisco. Her frazzled mind and inability to concentrate didn’t allow her to go any further. She had started to waver and nearly fell from the sky before spotting her perch.

Detta ignored the comment and posed her own question. “How did you find me?”

“We’re connected, remember?” Dwayne said as he sat down next to her, his legs dangling over the edge and his back resting against the stone cliff. “You’re not strong enough to close us out yet. You’re lucky it’s me and not David here.”

“David’s preoccupied.”

“He is and that’s why you’re lucky.”

“He was my assassin, Dwayne. There’s no way to cut it any differently.”

“He’s your brother now. To be cliché, let bygones be bygones.”

“Bygones?” Detta arched her eyebrow and turned her head to face Dwayne. “You’re telling me I should just forget what he did to me?”

“Yes,” Dwayne said flatly. He rolled his eyes when he saw her look. “What are you going to do? Cling to that resentment for eternity? Neither David nor Max likes strife and you won’t live long enough to drag it out.”

Detta turned to look back out towards the ocean. “Easier said than done.”

“Then make it easier done. Do it for Marko, at least. He’s at risk too by your adamance to hold a grudge.”

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Then leave the past in the past, especially your mortal past. That’s not you anymore and David can’t kill you, not without permission.”

“And what if he has it?”

Dwayne sighed. “He doesn’t. You haven’t done anything serious enough to render it.”

“But…”

“But don’t think you can evade punishment.”

“What kind of punishment?”

Dwayne shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ve never had to endure it.”

“Well aren’t you perfect.”

“Don’t you dare start snapping at me. You’re not fully accepted yet, Detta. The last thing you need is everyone turning against you.”

“So what am I? A vampire teenager?”

“More like a kid in her terrible twos. Just take Marko’s advice. I like you, Detta, and I don’t want to see you go but Marko has been my brother much longer than you’ve been in the picture and if I had to choose—”

“I know. I don’t need to hear it.”

“We need to go back. We all need to be there for Star’s next step.”

“You think she’ll actually take it?”

Dwayne shook his head. “No. She doesn’t have it in her.”

Detta made to stand up. “I know.”


	8. Toy Solider

“It’s a little late to go to dinner, isn’t it? I don’t think anything will be open. Besides, I’m not very hungry.”

“I think you’re lying,” David said to Star as they pounded the boardwalk.

Star was right. It was three in the morning. Nothing was open except the vampire buffets warming themselves on the low flames of the fires on the beach. To David, Detta was nonexistent, neither Paul’s nor Dwayne’s demeanor had changed and Marko looked noncommittal. He was unsure of what to say or do, especially in front of the others and Detta was just as awkward. Needless to say, there would be no joint feeding tonight. But on this night it was Star’s turn to make the change, not a time for focusing on Detta’s mishap. Star was in a do or die situation and, from how she had acted before, it looked as if ‘die’ would be a better fit. They turned down a flight of stairs, Star falling slightly behind before she stopped completely.

“Wait a minute!” she wailed, standing a couple steps up from the sand. The gang turned to face her, all of them rather shocked that she was being even remotely defiant. “I want to know what’s going on. I’m sick of being kept in the dark and ignored. I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me something.”

David smirked and walked back towards the stairs, walking up behind Star and placing his hands on her shoulders. “No need to get angry. I was wondering when you were going to ask.”

“Wondering . . . but I’ve been asking—”

“Detta will show you what’s going on, won’t you, Detta?”

His face was fierce; on second look he wore something closer to a sneer than a smirk. It was a test. He was trying to see just how far her insubordination would go. It was in her will not to comply but what would shock him more: the balls Detta would have to defy him yet again or to actually submit? Her instinct was to tell him to go fuck himself but her thoughts drifted to Marko and what he had risked, and what he was risking, for her. She could feel the eyes of her brothers, and her lover, on her, expectant, hesitant, waiting. If there were ever a time to swallow one’s pride, now would be it.

Detta stepped closer to Star and David and as she did, she morphed into her vampiric form. The severe angles of her Nosferatu face shown through, her fangs protruded, her eyes were flaming. Star seemed to choke on her own tongue, a scream catching in her throat. Her eyes were wide, too scared to cry, her body unwilling to move, held firm by David’s hands.

“You see, Star,” David started, spinning her around to face him. Her scream found its way out of her throat when she saw David’s inhuman form but he quickly covered her mouth with his hand and turned her to face his group, now in full vampire mode. She screamed again, this time it was a low, muffled ripple from her throat as she tried to squirm out of David’s arms but it was pointless. Now tears started to form. “You have two choices: be one of us or die. Show her, Detta. Show Star what we do.”

Detta looked over her shoulder towards the closest bonfire. Around it mingled some kids their own age, perhaps younger. Pot was heavy in the air. She looked back towards David again and his look said ‘do it.’ He didn’t need to make her fear him. Nothing would work. His apathetic features were a stark contrast to the flailing Star who was now swatting at David behind her. There was no eye rolling, just determination. She walked quickly to the bonfire before breaking into a sprint, a very unlucky day hurtling towards the nearest human. He didn’t even know what hit him but he realized he was halfway to the boardwalk’s stairs before he saw the scene at the bonfire he had just left. As Detta pulled the boy away, the three vampires launched themselves at the group and began their slaughter. Upon seeing this, the boy began to flail but Detta held firm.

When she reached her spot on the sand, just in front of David and a relenting Star, Detta tossed the kid in front of her, holding him close to her body so he wouldn’t get away. She looked from David’s now smirking face to Star’s scared and lost expression before diving into the boy’s neck. As Detta drank and the kid died, she could not hear Star cry out but just weep for what she was becoming. She finished her meal and tossed him aside before looking up at Star to see that she was no longer fighting David although he still held her firm. She was looking off into the night, away from the carnage, tears streaming down her cheeks. Now she had no escape, and she knew it.

“You have your answers now, Star. Do you feel any better?” Detta asked.

David’s head jerked towards the fire before he released her and walked away, passing her off to Detta. She slumped to the stairs, a look of stone on her face, and looked up at Detta.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she said, her voice hoarse and tear-choked.

“You think that matters? It’s what David wants, not you.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want this.”

“Then you die. There’s no other way about it. You know our secret. You either follow suit or we take you out for lunch.”

“Is this a joke to you?” Star looked affronted, almost sickened.

“We all deal with it in our own way but my situation’s different from yours. I chose to live rather than die. David was never part of the equation, not at the beginning. In the end, if you accept this, you must accept obedience.”

“But I don’t accept this!” Star said, thrusting herself up. Standing on the stairs, she was inches taller than Detta. “And I will not play into the arms of a man who deceived me.”

“You still have a pulse.” Detta edged closer to her, her vampiric features gone although the blood remained. “Therefore you accept it. You don’t have to come to terms with it, Star. Your guilt, your fear doesn’t have to be gone. You haven’t outright denied it nor asked to die so you accept it and all of its clauses. You think I enjoy being subservient to the man who tried to kill me on two different occasions? I have Stockholm Syndrome being shoved down my throat and I’m in a sexual relationship with someone who, in our world, is my brother. Freud would have a field day but in the end, you have to want it, not have it thrust upon you.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

Detta shrugged. “That’s up to you but you can’t get out on your own, not now. You’re in too deep.”

Detta whipped her head around to the sound of a struggle near the fire. The boys were arguing. She looked up at Star quickly before running over to the scene to see what was going on. Paul and Marko were feebly attempting to be mediators between Dwayne and David but to no avail. A few moments went by before Detta realized that hidden behind Dwayne’s legs was a small boy of around ten. He was dirty, shaggy, had obviously latched on to the group that had just been slain. It took Star even longer to spot the single remaining mortal but when she did, she didn’t hesitate to run to him and scoop him up, a second barrier between him and David. Detta knew that the boy was the age of Star’s brother when he died. She also knew that this was going to be amends for her, reparation. She couldn’t help her brother but she could help this boy.

“There’s plenty of other meat around here, David. You’re not touching him.” Dwayne, who was normally so stoic and quiet, was roaring, his voice deep and booming, sending shock waves into the air.

“Wasn’t for me. I was going to give him to Star. Small kill for a small girl. It wouldn’t take her much anyway.” David looked savage standing toe to toe with Dwayne. Had they been in fang, blood would have been spilt already. “What’s it to you?”

“Not the kid,” Dwayne said, his jaw clenched.

“You’re not touching him, you fucking monster!” Star yelled to David. She held the boy in her arms, his face buried in her shoulder, his legs wrapped around her body. “You’re not touching him.” Star tried to sound fierce but the tears welling in her eyes told the truth.

David laughed and backed away from Dwayne. Detta inched closer to Marko and Paul while Star remained behind Dwayne who was standing his ground, his face unwavering.

“C’mon, man. He’s just a kid. I thought Max said—” Paul started but was cut off my David’s death glare.

“Well, looks like caviar is off the menu. Fine.”

“It’s not all a game, David,” Dwayne said. “Even you aren’t above Max.”

David gave Dwayne the same glare he gave to Paul. “Okay. Lets put the ball in Star’s court.” She looked at him, tears still in her eyes, her hand resting on the back of the boy’s head. “You decide. Either we get a little brother or we have dessert. Choose.”

“You’re not going to kill him. You’ll have to kill me too,” she answered.

David just laughed. “Is that supposed to be a challenge? Choose, Star. He becomes one of us or he dies. It’s a simple decision.”

“I won’t let you kill him.”

David smirked, a satisfied look on his face. “Looks like we got ourselves a kid brother, boys.”


	9. Door's Open

The pounding of Detta’s fists on Max’s door mingled with the deep barks of Thorn from within. Surely this was against their rules. A little boy, just ten; he couldn’t rightly function as a vampire. He couldn’t survive; he couldn’t comprehend what was happening. It just couldn’t be. Max threw open the door looking harassed. Detta didn’t know why. It’s not like he was asleep.

She was still panting, winded from her rushed flight to Max’s house, her voice coming in gasps. “Say he can’t do it! The boy is too young!”

Max frowned down at her. “Detta, what are you talking about? What boy? Who can’t do what?” He wasn’t inviting her in but stood firmly in the door, Thorn just behind him, sneering his fangs at her.

“David . . . the boy saw us. Star won’t let David kill him. Now he wants to—”

Detta’s words chocked in her throat as a pair of gloved hands reached around her neck and pulled her back. Her feet flew out from underneath her and she was thrown onto the bridge connected to the stoop she had previously been standing on. She could hear footsteps running along the wooden planks as David’s words echoed in her ears.

“You’re just a glutton for punishment, aren’t you, bitch? This has nothing to do with you.”

Marko bent down and wrapped a hand around her arm to help her up. He lifted her effortlessly onto her feet as she looked into his eyes. He agreed. So did Dwayne and Paul. She could feel their blood. They all thought the boy was too young.

“Where’s Star?” Max asked.

“At the cave with the kid,” David replied curtly.

“Laddie.”

David’s head whipped around to look at Dwayne, a frown on his face. “What?”

“His name is Laddie.”

David just shook him off. “Whatever. Max, this doesn’t concern her. She can’t go running to Daddy every time big brother does something she doesn’t like.”

“It’s not just me this time, David.” Marko placed his hand lightly on the small of her back, a silent urge to silence her. She turned her head towards him slightly in acknowledgement and then turned back to David and Max. “Max, please. He’s only ten.”

David glared at her and Max looked lost in thought. “Come in.”

The boys followed him in and Detta stood in place, knowing she wasn’t allowed. She watched the backs of the boys file into Max’s house and watched as the door shut on the light within. She turned her back on the cast-out and started to walk away when she heard the click of the doorknob and the faint squeak of the hinges as the door opened again.

“Detta.”

She turned around to see Marko standing in the doorway. He stepped aside to show that she was to come in. She slowly walked up to him and stood in front of him, watching the emotions in his eyes swimming around, knocking into each other. She thrust her hand out and entwined her fingers in his hair, bringing his face to hers. Their lips met and, for that moment, all was forgotten. Marko placed a hand on either side of her face and held her there, not wanting to let her go. She parted their lips, letting hers hover just over his.

“I’m sorry.”

He looked into her eyes and saw her apology. He wanted to take her away right then but he couldn’t. “Yeah, I know. Me too,” he whispered back.

“It’s going to hurt, isn’t it, his punishment?”

Marko nodded. “Yeah.”

Detta looked down at her feet and walked into the house. Marko closed the door and followed close behind, eventually walking in front of her to guide her into the right room. They were waiting for her in Max’s living room, all seated and waiting for the meeting to begin. She was officially one of them now, accepted into the fold, allowed to break bread with the rest of the family. The room was tacky, neon signs on the walls, gadgets everywhere. It was an odd way to show one’s wealth but, Detta guessed, it played into Max’s nerdy-trying-to-be-cool façade. Marko ushered her to the couch in a seat next to Dwayne while he grabbed an empty chair on the other side of the makeshift circle.

Max was rubbing his temple, his glasses in his hand. He placed them back on his nose before he spoke. “What’s this about a young boy?”

Detta made to speak but her voice was quelled by the gentle placement of Dwayne’s hand on her knee. She looked over to David who also looked ready to talk but he had silenced himself when he saw Dwayne’s lips move. “We were testing Star.” Everyone knew what that meant. “There was a boy, Laddie, with the group we were feeding on. He’s ten.” Dwayne’s voice was solemn. “David saw him, thought it would be a perfect kill for her.”

Max’s head jerked towards David, fury writ on his face. David merely rolled his eyes. “You’re getting sloppy, David.”

“It was a test, Max. And a perfect one at that. If she could kill the kid—”

“You know the rules. No children.”

“What the hell was I supposed to do? He saw us. You know the rules about that, Max. No one can know. He knows. Now it’s either kill or be killed and the sappy shack won’t let me touch him.”

“You would think, after your last indiscretion, that you would have learned. Apparently your punishment wasn’t harsh enough.”

Detta thought that that must refer back to the contract kill on her, how he had kept it from everyone, how he manipulated everything. She never found out what happened to him. Never even bothered to ask. She just didn’t care. He tried to have her killed, twice. Considering he looked unscathed, as far as she was concerned, the punishment wasn’t harsh enough either.

“Looks like we’re trapped in a box then, huh?” David said snidely.

Max leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed in concentration. Detta’s eyes jumped from boy to boy, reading each one of them. Marko was noncommittal. He knew Laddie was too young and didn’t want him in the pack but he wasn’t going to put up a fight if it went the other way. David just looked annoyed by the whole thing, as if this should have been resolved already. He didn’t see what the problem was. Laddie should have been food by now. Dwayne was the most concerned although his face showed no signs of it. This was a child and he should be let go. Who would believe him if he told anyone? Tall tales spun by a runaway; he would be brushed aside anyway. But should he be turned, he, and not David, was going to be his mentor. Dwayne was the most placid of all the boys, the most able to handle Laddie, the most willing to commit. Paul, again, was beating with his own drummer, his fingers tapping against his knee. He would rather not kill the boy as his unusually unsmiling face stated but, like Marko, he wouldn’t fight it. However, Detta noticed this piece of minutiae floating around in his brain; he thought it would be cool to have a little brother around the cave, someone to keep up with his own energy.

“Detta.” Detta snapped out of her reverie and looked over at Max who was staring at her intently. “For the first time in this family, what you have to say actually matters. What do you think?”

She quickly scanned the room and noticed all eyes were on her; David’s boring into her a little stronger than the others. She straightened herself up before speaking. “Well,” she shrugged her shoulders, “he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s not his fault. He shouldn’t have to die for it.” David made to speak but Detta shot him a look before he had a chance to say anything. He quickly relaxed as she continued on. “However, he poses too much of a risk should we let him go.” She felt Dwayne start to speak this time and raised her hand to silence him. “Considering the town, Laddie’s crazy stories of vampires in Santa Carla might not be brushed off as quickly as we may think. I think the safest thing, for everyone, would be to turn him. But I say this now,” she said, her voice getting stern and looking directly at Max, “I’m not a babysitter. He’s not my responsibility.”

“I can look after him,” Dwayne interjected. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“And there’s always Star. She won’t let him out of her sight, not around us,” Detta added.

Max looked at each of his children intently, searching for their truths. It was a moment before he spoke again, but his tone was filled with finality. “He becomes one of us. Keep a close eye on him.” He motioned to Dwayne. “He’s still a risk even after that drink. Now, I think we’re done here.”

At the store, Max was his usual self, treating her the same as he did before she was turned. In private, she was a burden, a child that wouldn’t obey. A hassle. He treated the boys like this as well. If this was supposed to be a family, why not act like a father instead of someone just going through the motions and following a set standard of rules? Detta stood up and followed the boys out of the house, closing the door behind her. She was just about to mount the bike behind Marko when she felt a sharp tug on her hair as her head was wrenched back. She threw her hands up to the pair gripping her hair, looking around as she did, and saw David out of the corner of her eye, a sneering smirk on his face. He pulled her away from the bike and brought her up against his body, his lips close to her ear.

“I think now’s the perfect time for that punishment you have coming. Leave! Now!” he yelled to the others as he started to drag Detta to her house. “Scream and I’ll make you wish you had never met me.”

“I already wish I had never met you,” she winced. “You’re going to have to come up with something better than that.”

She felt a slice at her throat and felt her skin open up. The blood oozed to the surface as she tried with all her might to quell the flow. David ripped at the wound more, making another mouth on her neck, and she was no longer able to stop it. She wasn’t strong enough. The blood poured down her neck despite her best efforts to tell it otherwise and the lights started to fade around her. The roar of motorcycle engines was distant and, for a fleeting moment, she thought she was going to die. That thought was quickly eased when she remembered that this was a punishment, not a death sentence. She just had to get through this and it’d be all over. The lights dimmed ever more, she was no longer able to hear the engines and Detta succumbed to that familiar friend called darkness once again.


	10. Do A Little Switcheroo

She could feel that her throat was hoarse without even speaking. She felt a draft; her skin felt stiff and the air crackled in her throat. Without even opening her eyes she knew she was in her own house. That was the last direction that David had been dragging her in before she lost consciousness. Her throat had been slit, she knew that. Detta remembered the knife tearing at her skin. Blood had dried around the wound but was it still open. She could feel the threads of the Berber carpet beneath her tickling her skin . . . then it dawned on her: she could feel the carpet everywhere on her body. With great effort she lifted her arm up and ran her fingertips along her body. It was bare. David had stripped her of her protection. He knew this was a way in which Detta had never wanted him to see her.

Her eyelids fluttered open and she was greeted with a dim, flickering light dancing about the room. The smallest candle on the table cast the most ominous shadow in this light, the darkness dancing across her naked body as she lay on the floor. Detta made to sit up but was unable to. It took nearly all of her effort just to lift her arm. She didn’t have enough strength left to hoist her entire body off the floor. She had been drained too much and she knew that was David’s intent.

“Do you know how good you taste when you have fear coursing through your veins?”

It was David’s voice floating to her through the shadows. The fact that she couldn’t see him scared her even more. Detta struggled again to lift her arm up to touch her neck, assess the damage as best she could. Her fingers found the slit that she knew David had made. While the well had run dry, the wound had yet to close. It was blood that allowed her to heal and without it she lay exposed, in every sense of the word. Her fingers traveled the length of the slit and found another wound: puncture marks. Her fingers traveled down her neck to her shoulder—more teeth marks. She tilted her head as best as she could, looking down at her arm. Tears started to well in her eyes when she saw David’s bites running the length of it. At this point she need only guess what the rest of her body looked like. David had drained her, incapacitated her. He could do with her what he pleased and she was powerless to stop it.

“Well, well. Looks like vampires can cry.”

Detta shifted her eyes down and saw David crawling up her body, his form fully clothed but void of his usual trench coast. She could only guess where that had been tossed. She could feel his jeans rubbing against her skin and when his head hovered just above hers, she saw, out of her peripheral, the sleeves of his thermal shirt pushed up, exposing his forearms. Detta kept her head back, unable to do anything else, and focused on a spot on David’s forehead, not wanting to look into his eyes. She feared that she would see just what he had done to her if she did.

David chuckled down at her. “Dear Detta, what makes you think I’d want to fuck you?” He laughed as he stroked her hair.

Detta chocked back a sob and feebly tried to blink back tears.

“You can’t hide from me, Detta,” he said after seeing the moisture in her eyes. “I’ve consumed so much of you, I know you inside and out.”

“Don’t—” Detta’s voice stuck in her throat and what came out was nothing more than a gurgled whisper.

“Don’t what? Why not? I know just what you like. Looks like Marko does a good job but, you know, I could do better. I know you like it just . . . like . . .”

“No!” A hoarse yelp erupted from Detta’s throat, simultaneously from her mouth and her wound, as David’s fingers walked down her body to the crook of her thigh. “Rape . . .”

His eyes wandered back up to hers, his motions stopping, a teasing look on his face. “Rape?” David thought for a moment. “Nah. You could pull through that too easily. The imprint of something like that on a vampire is fleeting. I could, of course, just to put your cherry on my sundae,” he snickered at his own crude joke, “but I like my girls a little more active. You just lying here, not much fun, is it? No, I have something better planned for you, Detta. We’re just going to do a little switch and I’ll be your dominant. I know how much you’d like that.” David sneered.

Detta mutely wailed. Her bare chest heaved and tears flooded down her face and into her already blood-matted hair. She would have preferred the rape to the transfer of power from Marko to David. He was right. She could get over the sex much easier than this.

David looked at her, mock pity on his face. “Don’t be so sad. It could be a lot worse.”

Detta sobbed and gasped. “How . . .”

He smirked. “How? My punishment for betraying Max and the boys? It would have killed you,” he growled. “Drained, exposed to daylight, doused in holy water, had food dangled in front of me but just out of reach. It was torture.”

“Would . . . rather . . .” Detta choked.

“You would rather be dead than see Marko again? Here I am thinking I’m letting you off easily.”

Detta could only weep. No words would come to her and if they could she wouldn’t be able to express them anyway. David raised his wrist over Detta’s face and gashed at it, allowing the blood to flow onto her lips. She clenched them tight and forced her head to turn, the double effort depleting nearly all of her strength.

“Don’t fight, Detta. This is the only way you’ll survive.”

“Marko . . .” she choked, muffled into the carpet.

“Will come help you?” David laughed a sinister laugh. “The naïve fledgling. He risks a greater punishment if he interferes. He knows that if he wants to see you alive, he’ll stay away until it’s done.”

Detta wept harder for what she was about to lose. She felt the steady drops of blood falling on her cheeks and the smell had finally found its way to her nose. Having been drained to such an extent, the urge to feed became overwhelming. Nevertheless, she fought it, closing her eyes tight and keeping her mouth shut. David looked upon her with a childish awe that she hadn’t taken the bait yet.

“Don’t fight it, Detta. You’re too weak and your instinct is too strong. You’re going to drink. At your age, you can’t resist temptation.”

The pounding in her ears became overwhelming. All she could smell was blood. The thought of feeding, of regaining strength, had pushed everything else from her mind. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to hold out. Detta could feel David press his bleeding wrist to her lips but she still wouldn’t take. It was only a moment before she felt fingers on the back of her neck, near her jaw, searching for her pressure points. David clamped down and Detta automatically opened her mouth in a silent scream, her fangs already extended from the blood in the air. David wasted no time and quickly impaled his wrist on her teeth, sinking her fangs into his veins so she had no choice but to feed.

It was here that Detta ended and the monster within her began. Maroon stars burst in front of her eyes and the only thing that consumed her was the blood draining into her mouth. David knew this, knew how she would react and she knew, somewhere inside of her, that that cackle being drowned by the pumping blood was issuing from David’s mouth. Her brain no longer saw reason. It just made her clench her jaw onto the disembodied blood flow and drink. She was attempting to satiate an insatiable thirst. David had drained everything from her and this spring of life had been brought to her to help her get better.

Soon the wrist was no match. Not enough blood was pulsing from that vein. Detta launched herself up from the floor with her newly regained strength and latched herself onto the neck her senses told her was there. She saw nothing but red and that faint, sinister cackling could still be heard over her pounding heartbeat. The savage beast started to get full, the monster faded into hibernation and Detta started to re-emerge from the pool of blood she had started to drown in.

She could feel her fingers resting on the back of a neck, on stiff strands of hair she knew to be foreign. She opened her eyes and saw the mass of black beneath her and the spines of white blonde next to her face, entwined in her fingers. In a flash, Detta remembered what was going on, that it was David she was latched to, her naked body atop his clothed one. His hand rested on her back, his nails digging into her skin. A deep sense of revulsion rose from the pit of her stomach and she retched before she threw herself from David’s grip and scrambled away from him. The smirk on his face disgusted her.

“But we were having so much fun.”

“No! No!” Detta screamed, trying to wash the images from her memory.

His smirk continued. “I told you you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

Detta began to weep. Her sense of David was overwhelming now but she could still feel Marko, his connection stronger than the other two. She crawled to the couch and wrenched a blanket away from the cushions, wrapping her exposed body so tightly it could have cut off circulation. No words would form on her lips for what she felt towards David. There were none to describe it. She just wanted Marko.

David walked to a chair and grabbed his wayward jacket that had been thrown there helter skelter earlier in the night. Once he was at the door, he turned back to the sobbing mess that was Detta, curled up in a blanket on the floor. “Congratulations. You’ve survived your first punishment. Lets hope you’re smart enough to make it your last.”

With her strength regained, and her wounds healed, her violent sobs echoed off the walls of her flickering house. Tears blurred her vision and the cries choked in her throat. The last thing she had wanted on this earth was to be this close to David. She could feel his victory, his triumph over her and her body convulsed with regret. This is what it would take for her to learn to control herself. This was her punishment for not being able to do so before. Marko would understand, she hoped. She couldn’t tell anymore. It was David that overwhelmed her now.

“Marko!” she wailed, her voice gruff through the tears.

She lay huddled on the floor still unable to move, not wanting to move, just wanting to curl up and die. She wanted her connection to Marko back. She was lost without it and had no reason to live this undead life if not for him. David weakened her in every way and she knew she couldn’t pull herself up on her own.

“Marko!” she screamed, her rocky voice carrying off into the night, her hopes that Marko would come fresh in her mind.


	11. Detox

The night faded fast as did Detta’s pleas for Marko to come to her. With the rising sun came the sleep she didn’t want to partake in. She wanted Marko, not to shut her eyes. She feared that if she did, she’d see nothing but David, a vision that would torment her. Her slumber was filled with restless half dreams, images that she couldn’t remember, not clearly, and she was thankful for that. Detta had a feeling that they were visions that were better left forgotten.

The sun set on her day once again as Detta lay still curled in her blanket on the floor of her living room. Her eyes fluttered open and she felt nothing but disgust and revulsion at the thought of whose blood was running through her. She wanted nothing more than to scrub her body of the filth that now encompassed it.

An anxious pounding echoed from her front door but Detta had no desire to get up. She no longer wanted to function. She just wanted Marko. She whispered his name, her voice hoarse from a night of screaming. She was surprised that the neighbors hadn’t stirred. It seemed that everyone did look out for just themselves. She clutched the blanket tighter to her body, drawing her knees closer to her chest as the pounding continued. But it wasn’t long before she heard the doorknob click and felt the rushing wind of the opening door on her body. Her eyes rolled to the side and saw the man she had been screaming all night for. Marko looked down at her, a look of pity, disgust and anger riddling his face. He knew it was within David’s right to punish as he deemed fit but Marko couldn’t help but feel betrayed by his brother. Max wouldn’t see it as such; it was just a punishment to him but to Marko, David had broken the bond that he and Detta had.

Once her eyes had touched his face, Detta started to weep, overcome by emotion at the sight of her savior. He knelt down next to her and picked her up like an injured child, holding her body close to his as she sobbed on his shoulder. As he sat on the floor, his legs outstretched underneath her, she wrapped her legs around him, locking her ankles behind his back and wrapping her arms around his neck, afraid to let go.

“He told us what he did,” Marko spoke into Detta’s neck as she cried harder, placing a hand on the back of her head. “But I already knew. He usurped our connection.”

Detta was crying too hard to manage any audible words from her mouth but, being this close, Marko could feel her questions. David might have saturated the bond but it was still there, stronger than Paul’s and Dwayne’s and he knew there was still some hope. He could feel her, wanting to know about vengeance, payback.

“Let that thought go now. Punishment is punishment, regardless of what it is. Max doesn’t put weight on the severity of one method over another. As long as death doesn’t happen, he doesn’t care.”

Her tears had started to subside, her breathing became slightly less erratic and through her rapid gasps, she was able to form some choppy sentences. “Am I . . . lost to . . . him?”

Marko’s face saddened but his eyes still had hope. “No, I don’t think so.”

She sniffed and wiped her cheeks. “Help me . . .”

His brow furrowed. “Help you how?”

“Reverse this.”

His mouth opened, slack-jawed, like a fish out of water, before Marko found his words. “I don’t know—”

“Yes you do!” The force with which Detta said this last statement made Marko forget that mere moments before she was inconsolable. “Think about it, Marko,” she said as she climbed off his lap. “The first time, you drained me and then filled me with your blood and our connection was there. David did the same thing and it overrode our connection with his own. Who’s to say it won’t work a third time?”

Marko stood up to face her, a half-worried look on his face. “I don’t know if that’s—”

“What, acceptable?” Detta’s eyes, bloodshot from crying, were getting oddly maniacal in their swollen state. “Are there terms and conditions to a punishment, Marko, huh? Is there a law stating somewhere that I can’t put a band-aid on my wound?”

He searched his brain for the answer but came across nothing. “Not that I know of. Then again, I don’t think we’ve ever had this happen before.”

“Then that’s it! We’ve found a loophole! Help me, Marko! We can’t be punished for it.” Detta marched into the kitchen and rummaged around in a drawer before walking back with a knife similar to the one used at her initiation. “We can’t be punished if there’s no law forbidding it. Help me, please.”

A look of deep contemplation came over Marko’s face. There was no defiance here, not that he could think of, but there would have to be an explanation to Max. Detta saw this look and became agitated.

“What’s there to think about, Marko? You have two choices—help me or I walk into the sunrise because I cannot live with this connection to David!” Her voice faltered and tears began to well in her eyes.

Marko walked slowly towards her, ready to embrace her, tell her that they were going to work it out together when she raised the knife to her throat and tore it across her skin from ear to ear, covering the fading mark made by David the previous night still etched faintly into her neck. She then moved the blade to each wrist, slashing the veins both vertically and horizontally in order to get the greatest blood flow. She could feel the warmth draining from her body as she dropped the knife and Marko ran to catch her before she fell. He slumped to the ground with her resting gently on the floor as her life poured from her. He wanted to drink from her but knew it would be counter-productive. That was David’s blood, too much that had been put into Detta.

When the steady flow subsided, the color gone from Detta’s body, and the stream nothing more than a mere trickle, Marko threw off his gloves and jacket and lay at Detta’s side, his body as close to hers as he could get it. He bit into his own wrist, letting the blood flow forth from his veins, and brought the wound to Detta’s pale lips, something that, this time, she did not fight. She wanted his blood, his taste in her mouth.

She greedily sucked at the wound until she sunk her fangs in, gulping down Marko’s blood in torrents. The beast in her did not rise this time; at least, not the same beast as did with David. She had been drained again, yes, but she was conscious of her feed and nowhere near as desperate for blood. No, this beast was different, one that had arisen in her before when in such close contact with Marko. The connection was coming back and with it her re-found animal lust that while had been absent for such a short time, felt like it had been born again.

She rolled her eyes closed and moaned in the ecstasy that was Marko’s blood. She brought her hand up to his and entwined her fingers with those that rested on her cheek. The sucking became methodic, sexual. She felt his head dip down the side of her face and to her neck, nipping lightly at her healing skin, careful not to draw more blood from her. He wanted nothing more than to drink from her but knew she had to feed first. His blood in her was too precious to take just yet.

She stopped her feed on his wrist and licked away the blood that remained before he moved his hand down her cheek, onto her neck and to the blanket that was still wrapped firmly around her bare body. His face rose from the crook of her neck and his eyes bore into hers. She needed more blood but she was screaming his name behind her eyes, wanting all of him. She teased his lips with her tongue, a playful grin skirting across her face. One hand brushed his cheek while the other rested atop his on the blanket, urging it down and out, away from her body. He tossed the feeble covering aside and stared at her naked form as if for the first time.

She sat up, slightly weakened, her eyes embedded firmly in his and she straddled him while he remained seated on the blood-laden carpet. Her vampire form was full fledged and her body wanted more blood. Detta lifted Marko’s shirt from his body and tossed it aside, pressing her bare breasts to his exposed chest. She ran her fingers through his hair, his curls soft as she tilted his head back and allowed her tongue to dance along his neck. She flicked at the vein, hearing him moan under her body. The more she teased, the tighter he held her. Detta started nipping at the skin and his hands wove their way into her hair, gripping it tightly as she liked so much.

Her temptation, in her weakened state, didn’t hold out long. She sank her fangs into Marko’s neck and felt him wail with pleasure. His blood allowed her to regain her strength while her feed on him allowed him to become fully aroused. She reveled in the feeling of him and it only made her drink more greedily. She could feel him reaching down for his pants and unbuttoning them. Uninterrupted, he kicked his boots off and shimmied out of his jeans, all while Detta fed off him, his lust for her led by her mouth.

She mounted him and her mouth broke from his neck, the pleasure of him inside her was too great to ignore. A smile spread across her face as she rode him, his hands guiding her hips. His nails raked across her back, causing her the greatest pleasure. She brought her mouth down to his, enveloping him and he her. They never could get enough of each other. Without a moment’s notice, he flipped her off of him and on to her hands and knees like the animal she had burning inside her. He entered her from behind, wrapping her hair around his hand and pulling it back. He thrust hard into her, her mouth echoing with wails of pleasure as he grunted and moaned his might into her.

Before she knew it, her back was against the wall, her legs wrapped around Marko’s body as he thrust even harder into her. But she could never get enough. She always wanted more of him. Their climax was sensational, like it has been their first night. What little moisture their bodies could create lay glistening on their skin, their chests heaving, their breathing rushed. Marko slumped them to the floor, Detta’s back still to the wall, her legs still wrapped around him. He, in turn, wrapped his legs around her and rested his head on her chest, reveling in the newly revived connection that had seemingly been lost for eons.

He’ll admit he took that connection for granted. He had forgotten what it was like without it and when Detta lost it, when David had taken it away, Marko, in turn, felt lost, empty. What he had found after subconsciously searching for all those years was wrenched away from him for that day. The pain of that was deafening and he could feel that loss and pain in her as well. She screamed for him, her lost boy, and he returned to her, never to leave her again.

Marko took a deep breath, his fingertips stroking Detta’s skin. “He knows.”

Detta, her eyes closed, reveling in the moment, replied, “I know and I don’t care. We’re safe and there’s nothing he can do about it.”


	12. Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Detta and Marko were in her kitchen coming down from their re-established connection and discussing odds and ends when a crack bounded off the walls of her house. She frowned and scanned over the living room towards her front door just in time to see it snap from its hinges and crash onto her floor, not far from where a currently invisible stain of blood had been not long before. David burst through the doorway, his eyes blazing, and stormed towards Detta, Paul close behind trying to get a grip on his collar. Detta’s eyes widened, fear oozing from her pores at the raging bull coming at her, and she backed up as Marko stepped in front of her.

“David, man, come on. What are you going to do? Punish her for your oversight?” Paul said, finally matching step with David and thrusting his body in front of him in an attempt to thwart the barreling vampire.

Paul put his leg down, anchored into the floor, and put his hands at David’s chest, throwing his weight into his shoulder. Marko came up behind him, placing one hand on Paul’s back and grabbing David’s scruff with the other.

“Didn’t think it through, did you, David? You fucked up.” Marko sneered, a slight smirk mixing on his lips.

David, however, didn’t see the boys holding him back. Instead he had flaming eyes just for Detta, a look alone that could tear her apart if he wanted it so.

“You bitch! That was supposed to be your punishment!”

“And it was, David,” Detta replied in a tone of forced calm, standing in the middle of her kitchen with her arms crossed over her chest. “It was twenty-four hours of sheer agony. But did you really expect me to live with your connection for the rest of my life?”

“What’s going on here?”

The three turned their heads towards the doorway as David kept his eyes planted on Detta. Max had a look of confusion writ on his face as he climbed over the ramshackle door. Dwayne followed closely behind him; he too was shocked by the sight, however, his face carried a look of expectation while Max sustained with one of awe.

“Need I ask again?”

“David’s punishment backfired,” Paul answered.

Max walked over to them, his eyebrow raised. “What do you mean ‘backfired’? This was Detta’s punishment?”

Paul nodded and motioned to her, all the while David’s eyes were still trained on Detta. “David broke her and Marko’s connection, put in his own.” Detta wanted to laugh at the way Paul was describing it all. It sounded like he was trying to decipher instructions on how to wire in a beat box. “They, uh, Marko and Detta, yeah, reversed it.”

Max’s eyes bore into the back of David’s head and then looked directly into Detta’s. “Is this true?”

She straightened up, her chin held high. “Yes, it is. I asked Marko, my maker, if there were any rules . . . he said no.” She blinked slowly, looking from Max to Marko. For once, Marko looked calm. No wrong was done.

David grunted and threw off the boys, turning around to face Max. “What the fuck’s the point of the punishment if Marko can fix it and make it all better?”

Detta breathed a sigh of relief to not have David’s stabbing eyes on her anymore. She watched, instead, as Dwayne snuck around the small crowd and to her side. He quickly looked down at her before looking back up at the boys.

“You’re lucky,” he whispered from the corner of his mouth.

“I know,” she whispered back.

“You should have covered all your bases then, shouldn’t you, David?” Max replied, a tired look on his face.

“I assumed that was permanent,” David scoffed, throwing back his arm to motion to Detta.

You know what happens when you assume, David, Detta thought. She coughed to cover a small chuckle but, unfortunately, her thoughts carried and David whirled around. She didn’t say it aloud because it might have rendered another punishment but she couldn’t be chastised for her thoughts. She hoped. Dwayne stepped in front of her as David pushed through Marko and Paul. He caught David by the collar and held him back.

“You messed up this time, David. Get over it,” Dwayne said, an eerie sense of stone calm in his voice.

“Next time think your punishments through and stop bothering me for such minor indiscretions,” Max said as he turned away from the group and headed back towards the door.

David broke loose from Dwayne and followed after Max. “Minor indiscretion? Max, she reversed the punishment!” David’s voice was wild.

“You need to cool off, David,” Max said as he slowly turned back around. “You have no one to blame but yourself. You can’t set terms and conditions after the deed is done. You should know that by now.”

“Actually,” Detta said, stepping softly around Dwayne and easing her way through Paul and Marko. “I’m going back to New York for a few days. I have some unfinished business that needs tending to—”

“No you don’t,” David cut in, pointing a finger in her face. “That business is already finished.

Detta shrugged her arms, a disgruntled look on her face. “It’s just a kill, David, remember? What do you care? You’ve already had your payout.” She rolled her eyes up to Max’s face. “Max?” Max looked from David to Detta and back, contemplating the situation. “I think a small break would do both of us some good.”

Max issued a quick sigh before resigning to an answer. “Discretion, Detta. That’s the most important thing.” David choked on his tongue, his eyes darting from Detta to Max and back while Max turned to glare at him. “Detta’s vengeance cannot be repaid through you. Besides,” Max’s shoulders dropped, “time apart could do both of you some good and honestly, putting an entire country between you two can’t hurt. I know my head will thank you for it. Be careful.”

Detta nodded slightly as Max walked out the door. By pure habit, he reached back to close what was now no more than a plank of wood that Detta and David were standing on and grasped nothing but air. He rolled his eyes and shook his head before walking away. Detta laughed at the sight before stepping off the door and crouching down to lift it back up.

“David, off.”

Without thinking David stepped back off of the wood as Detta made to lift the door, Dwayne walking over to help her.

“It’s not the end of the world, David. You tortured me. Congratulations. Now we can both move on. I fucked up, you fucked up, we’re one big fucked up blood-sucking family. Being a vampire doesn’t make you infallible.”

“But no matter what you are,” Paul interjected, his voice almost sing-song, “it sucks to be proven wrong. I’ll see you in a few days?”

Detta nodded as Paul patted her shoulder and cautiously opened the door, jerking as it wobbled on its hinges, and walked out to his bike.

“Be careful,” Dwayne said in passing as he joined his brother.

David remained rigid, standing at the entryway and staring off past her. Detta walked up to him slowly, careful not to get too close. “David?”

His eyes darted down to meet hers and quickly snapped back up. He rolled his eyes off to the side before speaking. “You’re lucky.”

She could see him rummaging around for something else to say but he found nothing. He’d been humbled and he knew it. It was embarrassing for him and to prevent any further wrath, Detta didn’t provoke him. Instead, David walked out the door without looking at either her or Marko and joined the other boys. Detta breathed deeply, glad it was over for the time being. She turned back to Marko and started walking towards him, her hands clasped in front of her.

She shrugged her shoulders. “So, I guess I’ll see you . . .”

Marko shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

“No. I’m going with you.”

“Listen, I think—”

“You should do this alone? Is that what you really want?”

“Well . . . yes and no . . .”

Marko reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. “A few days of just you and me. Take care of business and then relax.”

Detta looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I just don’t want to drag you into this if—”

“Are we not together?” Detta nodded. “Are you not our sister?” She nodded again. “Then I’m part of it.”

“But I wasn’t part of this when it all happened.”

“Technicalities.” Marko laughed. “Do you not want me to go?”

Her look became defensive. “Of course not. I’d love to have you with me. But him . . . I just want to do on my own.”

Marko looked into her eyes and saw the revenge there, the wrong that her editor had done to her and to so many others. He understood why she wanted that death for her own. It represented the silencing of a history that he wasn’t a part of.

“Okay. I’ll just wait in the hotel and rack up room service and porn charges on your credit card,” he whispered into her ear.

She laughed, feeling the tension lift. “Thanks. Tomorrow night then. Go get clothes. I’ll ship them ahead. We’ll leave at sunset.”

Marko grabbed her face and kissed her lips before heading out the door to join the waiting boys. Detta listened as their engines roared to life and the noise sped away. Butterfly wings fluttered in her stomach at the thought of returning to New York. It had been nearly two years and for all her boss knew, she was dead. This was her revenge and she could taste it already.


	13. East Bound

“You know,” Marko’s eyes shifted as he leaned into Detta, “when you said we were going to fly,” he whispered before dropping his voice to a barely audible tone, “I thought you meant we were going to fly,” he managed through clenched teeth.

“Peanuts?”

Detta looked up at the stewardess and smiled, taking two bags of nuts for her and Marko. When the woman walked off, Detta smiled coyly at him. “Are we not?”

Marko was still stunned. He had to remove some hooks from his jacket at airport security and came within seconds of a full cavity search before he was able to take his metal-filled clothes from the x-ray conveyor belt. Not only were they on a plane, but they were flying first class as well, a darkness flight that would have them into Kennedy Airport hours before the sun rose. When Marko went to meet Detta at her house, he fully expected to just take off from there, take a couple days to get to New York. It would have been a good way for Detta to master her flying but not only had she already gotten the tickets, she didn’t feel confident enough to fly such a distance. ‘I’m still unsteady,’ she had said. ‘You’re not going to get any better with your feet on the ground,’ he replied. She gave him a look, that same look she always gave him when he was trying to contradict her. ‘I’d rather take it a few miles at a time, not a few thousand.”

Marko looked around the cabin. He had never been on a plane before. Never had the chance to. He was turned years before commercial flying was affordable for his family and since then, he had his own means of air travel. It was rather stuffy, the air dry. The semi-cold breeze from the vent over his head was relatively amusing but he couldn’t stop playing with the overhead light. Detta slapped his hand away from it to get him to stop.

“Child.” She smirked at him.

Considering the darkness of the cabin, he could have induced epileptic fits in the people around them. They were seated first, in their wide berth chairs with ample legroom. He took the window seat and watched as the dozens of people filed past them towards the back of the plane, through a little doorway to where he could see three times as many seats as there were up front.

“Stealing from your victims, are you?” he whispered in her ear.

She smiled without looking up from her magazine. “Trust me. You wouldn’t want to sit in coach. You’d just end up wedged between a fat guy with stench for cologne and a screaming kid. You can thank me later.”

Everything was handed to him here. He forgot the last time he had a meal served to him on actual china with proper silver utensils, unless he counted that cult in Canada that came to worship him and David. They were good to him. Granted, this food didn’t whet his appetite and all he wanted was a good vein to suck on. Neither of them had a chance to feed before they left but from what Detta told him, a few deaths in New York would by far go unnoticed.

Marko turned his head back to Detta after her wise remark, her soft breath bouncing off his skin. “You think you’re cute, don’t you?”

Detta raised an eyebrow to him and turned her rested head to face him. “You know I’m cute.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he replied half sarcastically before settling himself back into his seat.

It was three in the morning, Eastern Time, when they landed in New York. While the other disembarking passengers looked groggy and half alive, Marko and Detta were a step away from refreshed. They had a meal to catch before they could turn in for the day. Stopping first to check into the hotel, they headed for Alphabet City with Detta’s promises of more runaways than Santa Carla would produce in a decade. It was hotter here then in Santa Carla, the buildings keeping in the heat being soaked up by the tar on the street. Although they were on an island, the breeze stopped at the first wall of skyscrapers it hit. The Lower East Side, as Detta attested to, was littered with fresh feed. They got their pick of the lot, and an easy meal it was. Screams were normal on the streets of Manhattan so their victims’ blended in perfectly. They carried the bodies out into the harbor, disposing them, as Detta so aptly put it, Mafia style.

On their fly back to the hotel, it was only seconds before Marko realized that Detta dropped back. He halted mid-flight and turned around, searching the sky for her when he spotted her sitting next to one of the spires on the crown of the Statue of Liberty, her legs dangling over the edge. He joined her atop the guardian of the bay, looking back at the city lit up against the blackened, light-polluted sky.

“It’s different here,” he said. “The feel. It’s almost . . . anxious.”

Detta nodded, a faint smile on her face. “Yeah. The city doesn’t stop. It’s pulse is always beating. A far cry from sedate Santa Carla, huh?”

“You liked it here?”

“I did.”

“You didn’t want to leave.” It wasn’t a question.

Detta shook her head. “But at least I can come back now without fear.”

“Will you really feel better if you kill him?”

“Better?” Detta thought on the word, her chin turned up, eyes towards the night sky. “No, not better. Relieved would be more accurate. This isn’t really an eye for an eye. He’s filth and I don’t doubt I’m the first person he’s ever put a hit on, not to mention harassed. He’s as impure as they come.”

“This coming from a vampire.” Marko looked at her, his eyebrow cocked.

Detta whipped her head towards him, a frown on her face. “I wasn’t a vampire when I was working for him. I wasn’t a vampire when I first thought that I could dredge better human substance from the bottom of the East River. I’m doing everyone a favor, not just myself.”

Her voice was angry, nearly insulted that Marko had made such an insinuation. He placed a hand on her knee and she turned her head back towards the city, its millions of eyes twinkling at the both of them.

“Do you think about coming back here . . . to stay?” he asked.

“After tonight I will.” She turned her head back to him. “You can’t expect me to spend eternity in Santa Carla.”

“I never wanted you to.” He turned his head, his eyes meeting hers. “We can’t stay in one place very long anyway, can we? Fifty years and we haven’t aged, might be a little conspicuous. We only have another ten or fifteen in Santa Carla before we’d have to move again. This is where David’s from.” Marko heard a small scoff issue from Detta’s throat but continued. “Max found him in, what is it . . . the bowling?”

“Bowery?”

“That’s it. He ran with the Irish gangs then. Left before the Italians came in. Met me in a Chicago suburb back during my greaser days.” Detta smiled. “Dwayne, he’s from here too. Different decade, of course, but we found him in L.A. Paul, surfer boy that is he, is from just south of Monterey. He was a scavenger. Both parents dead. David liked his attitude.”

Detta always wondered about where the rest of the boys came from. She knew that they weren’t natives of that costal town but it was still somewhat shocking to hear the truths of their pasts regardless, especially since she only knew their present.

“I wish I could have known you when you were mortal. Were you the same person then as . . .”

Marko laughed. “Vampires and their human pasts are never the same.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know. I guess, same demeanor and all, without all the blood drinking and killing.”

“Do you remember your family?”

“Do you remember yours?”

Detta’s brow furrowed, a contemplative look on her face. “I remember people. I see them in my head from time to time. But there’s no connection. I don’t think I’d recognize my own mother if I passed her on the street. I can’t even remember what she looks like.”

“The older you get, the fuzzier those images become. I may have the odd dream of a couple with a kid that looks like me, but that’s it. You trade your old life for a new one when you become a vampire. I guess it’s better that way. Less pain.”

“I felt pain though, when I lost the connection with you. It was the worst thing I ever felt.”

“We have odd emotions but what we do feel is magnified beyond human comprehension. Love, for us, is unbearable. That’s why you’ll rarely find a vampire that truly loves.”

“And you?”

Marko looked at her, fear and passion swimming in his eyes. “That pain, that loss, even for just a day, I never want to feel that again.”

“It scares you, doesn’t it? The connection?”

“Yes it does.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“What once was lost, now is found.”

“Wait, did I catch a tune on that sentence? You’re not going to start singing, are you?”

“If I knew the rest of the words I just might.”

Detta laughed and covered his mouth with her hand. Marko wrapped his arm around her shoulder and brought her body close to him, prying her hand from his face. He looked down into her smiling face and kissed her. A sense of relief and welcome met his lips as she kissed back, her hand gently brushing his cheek.

“Look,” she said, breaking their bond and nodding towards the east. The sky began to lighten and a creeping dawn was now edging over the horizon. “And to all a good night!”

“It’s Christmas in July now?”

“You sing, I recite, we’re even.”

“I’d say that’s a deuce. Lets go. You have a big night tomorrow.”

“I do, don’t I?”


	14. How Sweet It Is

“Smoke?”

Marko nodded.

“Smoke.”

“Smoke. You know, comes before a fire, gray in color. Well, I guess a better term would be mist but that’s only technical.”

“Smoke.”

“Look, you were worried about getting in undetected. This is the best way.”

“Yes, because a phantom puff of smoke migrating towards the elevator is inconspicuous.”

“Do you plan on having a lot of people around?”

“No, it’s after hours. He’s usually one of the last to leave the building at night. It’s when he actually gets some work done.”

“It’ll work perfectly then. Up the side of the building and in through the window.”

“You say it like I’ve turned to smoke before . . .”

Marko rolled his eyes at her. “It’s easier than flying. Trust me.”

“I’ve never seen you do it before.”

“None of us do it very often but we can all do it.”

Detta sighed and looked over at the television screen. Some prime time show was wending its way across the clock but she couldn’t have cared less. She was thinking just how she wanted to do it, how she wanted him to die, and every time the thought of laying her hands on him and drinking from his veins crossed her mind, it revolted her. He was too tainted for that. The notion that Marko repeated earlier about vampires being able to do funny things with human minds kept coming back to her. She wondered just what she could make him do. That is, if the very sight of his supposedly dead employee doesn’t give him a heart attack first.

“Here.” Marko snapped her out of her daze and Detta turned her head to face him, blinking moisture back into her eyes. “Just imagine yourself dispersing.”

Detta watched as the form of Marko dissolved into nothing more than a sheer mist that was able to move at will. It traveled from her feet over the carpet, up onto a chair, down onto a table, across the unmade bed and into the bathroom. Sure, he made it look effortless but he did that with flying as well and that was something she still hadn’t mastered yet.

“See? It’s really easy,” Marko’s voice, acoustic in the tiled bathroom, echoed out to her. She walked over to the door and stood in the frame, staring at him as he sat on the sink. “It’s an odd feeling. You’ll see but I’m telling you, it’ll work. Try it. Just think of dispersing.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Would you cut the shit and just do it?”

Detta glared at him before shutting her eyes. She wondered just how one was supposed to imagine oneself dispersing, whether if it was more like disintegrating or fading. Then she felt it, an odd sensation throughout her entire body. It almost felt as if she were floating, weightless. She opened her eyes and realized she was eye level with the toilet bowl. Her vision was fuzzy, as if a film clouded her eyes, yet she could see, or rather sense, perfectly, as if she didn’t need fully functioning eyes to get around.

“I told you you could do it.”

Marko’s voice came to her muffled, sounding almost groggy. There was nothing to lift when she tried raising her hand to her ear, no arm either and nothing it should have been attached to. She did it. Detta made herself mist. She wanted to go back towards the bed and before she knew it, she was facing the other direction and floating at ground level towards it. Instead, she decided to make a detour up the wall—and she did. At the crook of the ceiling she turned, gliding effortlessly across the textured paint splattered against the surface. When she should have been looking upside down, she was looking directly at the bed, as if her back were pressed against the ceiling, at the TV, at Marko as he walked out of the bathroom and watched as he smiled up at her misted self. A smile automatically flashed back to him as she lost all sense of the ceiling and of her vapor form. Next thing she knew, Detta squeaked as she bounced face first onto the bed and then off onto the floor. She sat there for a moment, dazed at the sudden transformation, before Marko reached out a hand and helped her to her feet.

“You break your train of thought, you turn back.”

“Thanks for that, Captain Obvious. Is there a better way I can flip back and forth without falling on my face?”

Marko laughed. “Just think about your body again, whole. You’ll form back up.” He smiled a sly, devious smile at her. “You’d be surprised at just what you can do when you’re mist.”

“Something we’ll have to try?”

“Try,” he scoffed. “You won’t know what’s going on until it’s already done,” he growled in her ear.

Detta uttered a throaty giggle before bumping him away with her hip. “Not now! We should get going anyway.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Marko asked as he ushered her out the door, locking it behind him.

“I’m sure. I told you, I need to do this alone. Meet me at Coney Island.”

“Trading one boardwalk for another, huh?” He chuckled.

“I guess so.” Detta smiled back at him.

“The Cyclone in an hour, an hour and a half. I shouldn’t be much longer than that. I’ll find you.”

“Or I’ll find you. You sure you want to meet so far away?”

“It’s really not that far. I just don’t want to get caught.”

Marko cocked his eyebrow. “Caught? Detta, according to every human who knew you, you’re dead. You even have a cutout of your own obituary on your refrigerator. No one’s going to think that you rose from the dead to avenge your asshole boss.”

“What if I’m seen?”

“That’s why you use the smoke,” Marko whispered, his voice barely audible as they passed the front desk. “But regardless, you can more faster than humans can see you. Don’t worry. You won’t get caught, you won’t be seen. You’ll be fine. I’ve never seen you worry like this over any other kill.

She looked into his eyes, her fingers intertwining with his. “This isn’t any other kill. Besides, I’m not even going to feed from him. That I can’t do, have his blood sloshing around in me.” Detta sneered at the thought but quickly wiped the image from her mind and smiled at Marko before kissing him.

She placed a hand on either side of his face and he countered, placing his hands on her hips and pulling her towards him. They remained locked in that position for minutes, the sounds of people’s footsteps passing them by carried to their ears but neither moved as the bodies brushed past them. Detta was the first to break the embrace.

“Roller coaster. Coney Island. I’ll see you soon.”

She walked backwards a few steps, still gripping Marko’s hands in hers, before she turned and soldiered off, walking down the nearest side alley and stopped. She turned full circle and opened her ears as much as she could, listening for mortal movement. The only things she could hear were rats scuttling about in the garbage cans and cockroaches zipping along behind them. Red brick and black windows glared down at her when she looked up to survey the building, reassuring herself that her launching pad was absent of human life. Detta stepped into flight, the sound of bats carrying after her as she headed to Midtown, satisfying revenge riddling her mind.

**vVv**

Alleys. New York was filled with alleys. While mortal that’s a bad thing, being a vampire it makes the city all the better. Darkness hides in alleys, one of the reasons why people avoid them. It’s fear that causes them to stick as close to the main streets as possible. Better for Detta for so many reasons but tonight at least no one would be able to see her slink up the side of the building, this odd patch of mist defying all laws of nature as it scales its way up the Midtown high-rise, its source unknown. All of the windows were shut when she reached the right floor but no matter. If she couldn’t find a crack, there were plenty of air ducts she could make her way into.

Through the haze of her misted eyesight, she saw that she had made it into the office of what she previously knew to be the co-editor. However, it was barren, looking like its occupant vacated not long ago. Dusted outlines of what were picture frames still dressed the wall, the teak desk scratched and obviously used, the chair turned over. Anger. It was residual but Detta could feel it lingering in the air. This man did not leave on good terms. It was a shame, though. She actually liked this guy. His content lingered in the room. Some memories were stronger than the others. He was a good man, would even stand up for her on occasion. That was probably why he left; he was too good of a human being to stay.

Detta’s re-formed self walked silently out of the office and across the newsroom to where she knew her editor’s office to be. From where she stood, she could see that he wasn’t in there. Her heart dropped momentarily until she felt his presence. He hadn’t left for the night, just for the moment. She edged towards the office door, her boots scuffling lightly on the ground, and made her way in. It felt oddly familiar, reminiscent, but she only knew that this was where she was supposed to be because it was what her gut told her. She knew the outside to be his office. The inside was nothing more than a distant dream.

She walked over to the desk and started flipping through some papers, general curiosity getting the better of her. On the corner of the desk sat a tattered brown leather journal stuffed with bits of paper. She reached for it and picked it up, careful not to let anything fall out. The cover fell open effortlessly; the worn spine indicating it was heavily used. Random newspaper articles filled the page gaps, scattered notes written on the yellowed paper in between. Something in the back, however, caught her eye. She flipped the journal over and let the back cover fall like the front and there sat a standard obituary. There was a fairly large amount of them stacked in back. She lifted them out of the journal and placed it back on the desk, wanting to get a closer look at the clippings. All of the faces in the pictures were vague to her. She knew she might know them but was at a loss for who they actually were.

It wasn’t until she came across her own that her motions stopped. Detta felt detached, staring at her own face, her name, her dates of birth and death, all staring right back at her from the obit in her hands. It was surreal, like finding a gravestone with her name on it. It would have been different if she were still mortal and had faked her own death but this was different. The girl in the picture she was looking at was dead. She’d been replaced by the undead figure now standing in the office. Two different people, two separate lives that merged two years prior. The last few months of her mortal life blended seamlessly with the start of her vampiric one. Detta breathed deeply, taking in the death of her former self.

Behind her obit lay one more, that of the man she knew occupied the office she came into. Then it struck her. The stack of obituaries she held in her hand were his tally marks, people that pissed him off or wronged him in his own demented way. She was right. She wasn’t the only one that he put a hit on. She grabbed the journal and stuffed the pieces of newspaper into the back and replaced it in its rightful nook. She could feel him coming back. It was nearly time.

Behind the door in the corner; it wasn’t necessarily dark but it was out of sight. He would have to step all the way into the office before he even saw her and by then it’d be too late. Detta heard the ding of the elevator echo around corners to her as her former editor, Ted, as instructed by the nameplate on his desk, thumped down the hall. She could smell his sweat, his collared shirt ringed. He’d gained weight, evident by his pounding steps. She could sense it on the air. His breathing was hoarse, heavy and ragged. Years of smoking clouded his lungs and he hacked before entering the room. Her lip curled but she maintained her position, leaning against the wall.

He lumbered in, grunting as he did, slamming the door behind him more than likely out of habit than actually wanting the door closed. His forehead has grown larger, if only by the smallest amount. It was still noticeable to her. His back had widened, his trousers fit a little more snugly then the last time she saw him. But he still hadn’t seen her, or felt the eyes boring into the back of his hypertensive neck. He was oblivious, like always, to everything around him except for himself. Detta smirked to herself, laughing at his blindness, his unwillingness to give a shit. All of that was about to come to an end. Detta pulled a cigarette out of the pack fit snugly in her jacket pocket and placed it gently between her lips. She reached into another pocket and pulled out a lighter, flicked it and lit her cigarette. Ted’s head shot up immediately, eyes darting towards the corner of the room where there burned a flame and a figure his eyes couldn’t quite focus on. She snapped the slighter shut, stowed it back safely in her jacket and took a long drag from the smoke, savoring the taste, the puff filling her lungs, smoke that would never harm her. Her eyes closed momentarily on the inhale but opened on the exhale, focusing directly onto Ted’s widened eyes.

She smiled sadistically, lit cigarette held between two fingers. “Hello, Ted. Good night?”

Ted squinted, a confused look riddling his face, unable to place the vaguely familiar girl in front of him. “Who are—” His voice caught in his throat when Detta stepped out of the corner and into the dull glow of the desk lamp. Ted stumbled over his words, searching for speech.

Detta cocked her head to the side in a playful manner. “What’s the matter, Teddy? Not happy to see me?” She took another drag on the cigarette and exhaled the smoke in Ted’s direction.

He let out a disingenuous cough before speaking. “Can’t be. Published your obit.” Ted shook his head. “No. It’s been a long night. I’m dreaming or something.”

Detta shook hers in turn. “Oh no, Teddy. This isn’t a dream. It’s very real. Here, want to feel my pulse?” Detta stretched out her wrist towards him. “Go ahead. Do it.”

As if in a daze, Ted reached out two fingers to take her pulse while Detta fought back a cackle. After trying a few different spots, he pulled his arm back, a look of horror on his face.

“This is a joke. Someone put LSD in my coffee or something.”

Detta walked up to Ted and slapped him hard across the face, anger chiseled on her features. “Did that feel like a hallucination, Ted, huh? You ever get slapped like that in a dream?” She was surprised she didn’t knock him out. The force of her hit was intense and while she could easily tear Ted in two, her effort hadn’t been in the slap, not really. Although a definitive handprint was now forming on his cheek.

His head turned slowly back to face her, his eyes wide and fearful. The ‘no’ shook rapidly from his head, wobbling it dangerously on his neck. It was a ‘no’ in quick succession, disbelief quivering in his jowls. “No, no. It can’t be. You faked . . .”

“No faking, Ted. The dead is walking and talking. And slapping. I’m very real and very pissed.”

Ted backed up to his desk, his eyes fighting to bulge from his head. He nearly lost his balance but composed himself quickly albeit without the luxury of grace. He walked backwards, groping along the edge of the desk for support as Detta walked towards him. She hadn’t even used her powers of persuasion yet. He was just too scared to try anything. It was almost calming to see the man that had previously been in no other position except for a powerful one be reduced to a quivering, bug-eyed bag of fear. A smile stretched across her face at the thought and Ted’s heart began to race even more. She didn’t know how long he could last with his body under that much stress and really, she didn’t care. As long as she got what she wanted before he died, she would be fine.

“So tell me, just how many people have you ordered killed?” His jaw began to quiver. “Does your wife know about your numerous murders for hire? What about the plethora of secretaries you’ve fucked? She know about them? Do you bring one home and force her to join in? Do you like watching while your wife fucks another girl just to keep you happy? She many not know numbers but she’s not dumb. Shit, I don’t even think you know your numbers. But I do think if you had a daughter who was to your standards, you’d plug her too. And if she ever squealed, you’d just kill her off like the rest of them. What’s that smell?”

Detta stuck her nose into the air and sniffed. An acrid, stale smell filled her nostrils as her eyes wandered around the room searching for its source. They stopped once they found the crotch of Ted’s trousers, the darkened khaki around the zipper spreading wider onto the legs, the fabric sticking to his skin. He looked down at himself and backed away from Detta who was trying with all her might not to burst out laughing. It almost didn’t seem appropriate, not now. The chair greeted his wide load as he stumbled back around the corner of the desk, gaping wide-eyed at her, afraid to move, too scared to speak.

“I take it I’m the first, oh what an honor, to make you wet yourself. Sucks to be this scared, doesn’t it? At least my attackers were humans,” Detta lied. He didn’t need to know about her or the boys. It wasn’t necessary. “I’m beyond that, Ted. I don’t even have a pulse. You’ve pissed me off so much that I’ve clawed my way out of my own grave to exact revenge. A mighty feat, raising the dead. Good job.” Her voice was throaty, bordering on seductive but was dripping with intimidation and disdain. “You’ve gotten away with it all for far too long. You’ve used too many people, destroyed too many lives all because you thought you were above them, a king playing with his pawns. I’m calling you out, Ted. Your luck’s run out and your number is up. But before you go.” Detta sat on the edge of the desk, one foot on the floor, one leg dangling from the edge, occasionally kicking Ted’s leg. He didn’t move or attempt to stop it. “I think a suicide note is in order.”

He burst into tears. The sight was pathetic and only induced a sense of vile revulsion in the pit of her stomach. Mucus and tears mixed on his chin as he tried to grope for words but was only drowned out by his sobs.

After a minute of hysterics, he managed, “I don’t want to die.”

Detta erupted in a fit of maniacal laughter. “I don’t care what you want. It’s not up to you anymore. You’re done with choices. Now I highly recommend you start that letter. A full confession of your indiscretions, your affairs, your murders, berate yourself a bit, let everyone know how big of a piece of shit you thought you were, how you enjoyed destroying people for your own personal gain and I think a good ending would be to say that you deserve to die before the rest of your past catches up to you. Yeah, I think that could work.”

When Detta looked back over at Ted, he was already writing through the sobs. His hand moved smoothly but not of his own accord. He was crying too much to even discern what it was he was writing. This was her doing it. She was controlling him now. There was no way he would do this on his own. Had she not been a vampire, he would have fought this but he didn’t stand a chance. Being so young, she still wasn’t that powerful but in his weakened state, she was able to latch on and take hold of his psyche, doing with it what she pleased. What scared her was that she didn’t know it had happened. She was probably too emotionally overwrought with the situation. She felt the control take hold when her and Marko fed from that girl but this seemed different. At the moment, she didn’t care. It was her time now and her editor that sentenced her to death was going to die.

After several long minutes of writing, Ted finally righted himself above the desk, placing the pen next to the scrawled piece of tear-stained paper. Detta looked at him, her face emotionless, before leaning in to grab the letter. She read it over: it contained everything she asked—a confession to everything, his motivations and, at the end, an apology, a begging of forgiveness for playing god, rounded out with a signature. She placed it back on the desk and a memory came to her, as if forgotten for ages. The journal.

“You know what?” Detta said, picking the letter back up and handing it to Ted. “Stick this with all those obituaries in that journal of yours and put it right there.” She pointed towards the spot where the letter previously sat. “People should find that first, don’t you think?”

Still sobbing, Ted leaned across the desk and grabbed his journal. The front cover flipped opened just as easily for him and he set the letter inside before placing it just where Detta wanted it. He looked up at her when he was finished, his eyes nearly swollen shut but they were still pleading with her to be lenient, to let him go. The rest of his body was rigid, under her control.

Detta scoffed before looking away from him towards the office door. “I’m done with you.”

Ted wailed, portions of his mind breaking through her control but not enough to stop his body from getting up and walking towards the window. The click of the lock sounded and the window slid up before she turned around. He was still crying as he hoisted one large leg over the windowsill and wedged his body through the small square opening, pulling his other leg out after him. He stood on the ledge for a moment, weeping into the uncaring night, before he leaned forward and let the wind take him to the ground.

He landed in the dark alley stories below with a sickening thud, like a watermelon being slammed onto the sidewalk, his body just as splattered. From that height, she would be surprised if he was recognizable after the impact. The alley was deserted and it was New York. If someone did hear it, they wouldn’t make any move to find out what it was. Chances were no one would know he was dead until the following morning, perhaps when the garbage men came to collect the trash.

Detta stood up and took one last look at the office. She felt detached. She could have torn him limb from limb with her bare hands, made him eat his own heart but she kept her emotions in control. What she still felt for Ted in her mortal life that carried into her vampiric one died with him. The resentment, the anger and what little fear she had left jumped out that window and splattered on the New York City street below. Now she was as distanced from the past she was standing in as if it hadn’t even been her own. Her surroundings were becoming less and less familiar, indicating that her business there was finally finished. No longer did this black cloud swim in her mind. She could leave the office that night and none of it would exist to her anymore. All that was left now was her new life in Santa Carla, the wide open city in front of her, the eons of world still unexplored and Marko waiting for her in Brooklyn.


	15. It's All So Clear Now

The ocean was so different here. Although in open water, the waves were significantly smaller, the water murkier, even at this hour of night. The breeze off the water was warmer, more humid. Summers in New York were always hellacious; the buildings trapped in the heat that the tar would soak up. Occasionally you’d come across a wind tunnel but it was far from pleasing. All it did was slam sweltering heat, exhaust and the stench of urine into your senses. But as unappealing as that sounded in her head, Detta missed it. There was nothing bad about Santa Carla but New York always rang true to her, even now in her vampire life. It fit and here she was at ease on her own. It was a place that she could truly call home. Santa Carla was growing on her but if Marko weren’t with her, it just wouldn’t feel right, not entirely.

As she sat on the bench that looked out across the tiny portion of beach, Detta waded around in her senses, figuring out what was going on. Marko was scoping for dinner, probably flirting up some pretty little thing in the amusement park. He felt her presence though and she knew he’d find her soon. There was something else, a new connection that she felt. The thoughts she was receiving were confused, lied to, there was an attempt to comfort there, a little fear and youth. Laddie drank from the bottle. She wondered how it had all played out. She could have easily found out, just tap into Star’s mind, but she decided to leave the girl with her privacy. She was torn. Detta knew that. She didn’t want Laddie to die but Star was suffering as a half vampire and didn’t want him to go through that pain either. She hadn’t been one long but Detta could tell that it had already worn on her. Star was going to starve herself to death before she fed and if she did, by chance, succumb to temptation, she’d probably throw herself into the sunlight before her mind had a chance to forget her past. But if she had been turned against her will, would that remain, that animosity from human to undead life? Detta’s unresolved issues with Ted superceded her human life until they were resolved. It’s likely Star would feel resentment and hate if she were turned completely. But how could that be resolved other than with her own death?

Dwayne felt different as well, more of a protector. He wanted to shield Laddie from it all, much in the way Star did, and Laddie took to him, a father figure, Star the mother and Paul. Paul was the goofy big brother he never had. It hadn’t been long since Laddie drank but each member of her vampire family had taken their role with Laddie. David was done with him. Detta knew that. Her and Marko? Well, she’d probably have more interaction with the kid than Marko would but that’s not saying much. Detta was never fond of children. Marko, he couldn’t care less, really. He’d be better off without one around but he’d just make it obvious what was his and keep Laddie away. Detta wondered, though, just what made Laddie run away from home to begin with? He hadn’t been gone long, Detta could sense that, and he wasn’t damaged like Star was. Detta felt a childish reason bubbling to the surface; he didn’t get what he wanted, or didn’t want to finish out a punishment. Whatever the reason was, it was warrantless, she knew that much.

Detta felt pressure on the bench next to her and was eerily reminded of David when he had sat down next to her those years ago, before she knew any of them. But out of the corner of her eye she saw Marko’s patchwork jacket flash past as he stepped over the back of the bench to settle himself next to her, draping his arm around her shoulder. Detta leaned into him, resting her head on his arm. He countered and reached across her with his free arm to grab her knees and shift them over his legs so they draped across him, her body turned to his.

“Everything all set?” he asked.

Detta nodded. “It’s all done. I can hardly remember any of it now.”

“I know. That’s the thing with unresolved issues. They stay unresolved until you resolve them.”

“Gee, thanks for the enlightenment, Captain Obvious. What would I do without your pearls of wisdom to guide me?” She laughed up at him.

Marko rolled his eyes and smiled down at her, bringing his lips to hers. “You know what I mean. When you’re human with something like that, it feels like a weight is lifted. When you’re a vampire the memory is lifted. When you live as long as we do, you can’t have excess memories like that staying in your head. They end up becoming an unnecessary weight.”

“And what happens if they stay?”

“You mean if the problem remains unresolved?” Detta nodded. “Then you suffer. You have that resentment, the anger, sadness, whatever it is that’s attached to that memory. It stays with you.”

“And if you can’t resolve it?”

“Then it’s a burden you carry for eternity.”

“That sucks.”

“Your eloquence is what I like about you,” Marko started, a grin spreading across his face before Detta pushed him and stood up.

“Oh shut it. Come on, let’s go. I’m hungry. Find anything good?”

“You like mohawks?”

“I can handle a mohawk.”

Marko and Detta walked along the boardwalk, back towards the people and their prey. Detta had been right. Food definitely was not a problem in New York City. Like Santa Carla, the beach was littered with runaways; only here the numbers were double, maybe even triple. People were darker, on edge, but if you showed a hint of punk or nonconformist angst, they would accept you as their own. Marko was able to infiltrate a group with ease, the lot of them up for the taking.

On their way back to the throng, Detta stopped at a dimly lit shop. The windows were lit with red and orange lights, backlit with purple. Tapestries with odd pictures and symbols hung in the windows. A faint smell of incense made its way out the door as Detta looked up and saw the sign that read ‘psychic’ hanging over it, creaking slightly in the small breeze. Detta looked down at the door again before looking over at Marko who had walked a few paces ahead and stopped.

“Lets do it.”

He looked confused. “Do what?” Then he realized the sign Detta was standing under. His eyebrow cocked and a sarcastic smile started to spread across his face. “Are you serious?”

Detta shrugged her shoulders. “Why not? It’ll be fun.”

Marko walked back to her, his eyes shifting around the scene. “If she’s real—”

“She is. I can feel it.”

“If we’re found out—”

“Who’d believe her?” Detta whispered, her own eyebrow raised now. “She won’t say anything, I know she won’t. She operates under discretion. You sense it. You know you do.”

“Yeah, still, doesn’t ease the anxiety any more. There’s still a risk.”

“There’s always a risk. But maybe we can find out about this connection. Whatever it is, maybe she can help; enlighten us because we’ve obviously hit a roadblock. Don’t you want to know?”

“I do. There’s no other way to do it, is there?”

“Can one of the guys tap into that area?”

“Even if they could I wouldn’t want them digging that deep.”

“Alright then. We do this, then we eat. Okay? For me? Humor me after my night.”

“As if you can remember it.”

“I can . . . sort of . . . a bit . . . shut up.”

Marko smiled and grabbed her face, kissing her lips and then her forehead before walking around her to open the door. The air inside the store was thick with incense, the ambiance dark. Lit candles were spread around the various bookshelves and glass counters, all held items for sale. Books on witchcraft, crystal balls of all sizes, medallions, jewelry, every piece of odd and end one could imagine a psychic selling, she sold it. Various herbs and stones littered each corner while tarot cards and palmistry kits encircled them. It was elaborate, all the trinkets and tapestries and lighting. It could have been a fake to anyone but Detta could feel the grounding in the shop, the reality. The thousands of fake psychics out there that hawked false prophecies gave those with real talent a bad name. This woman, wherever she was, was one of the genuine ones.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Both Detta and Marko jumped and turned around, startled by the woman that appeared from behind a curtain that neither of them had heard approach. They were both too engrossed in the room to notice. The woman saw the startled and shocked looks on their faces and her face dropped, her eyebrow raised.

“You kidding me? You two been standing outside my store for five minutes. That thing ain’t nearly solid, you know.” The woman motioned towards the tapestry handing in the window. It was sheerer from the inside than it appeared from the outside. One could very clearly see people walking past the window. Detta turned back to her, shock still on her face. “Don’t need to be psychic to see that. Besides, I have a trip in the back that’s connected to the door. Tells me when someone comes in. Little shits try stealing from me again and I’ll hex them! So, what can I do you for?”

Detta was expecting a gypsy; someone that looked like Star with a wispy, mysterious voice that spoke in vague sentences. Her clothes matched the part; flowing dress, glitter about, bangles up her arms, but her Brooklyn accent and hard-ass attitude was the exact opposite Detta had imagined in a person like her.

“We’d like a reading.”

“Together or separate?”

“Together.”

“That’ll be thirty. You’re in luck. I’m running a couples special this week.”

“Lucky us,” Marko mumbled under his breath as Detta elbowed him in the ribs.

“Ooooh, a skeptic, huh? Yeah, you’ve always been like that. Won’t believe something until it’s proven. I’ll make you a believer, kiddo. Follow me. The name’s Layla, by the way. And I swear to god, you start singing that song and I’ll slap you.”

Detta fought back a chuckle as Marko stared at her in disbelief. She was tucking Detta’s money into a pocket in her dress while she led the two behind the curtain and into the back room. It was small, a single circular table in the center, chairs around it with candles scattered about on tables around the room. There were no windows back there and yet even more tapestries hung around the walls. Marko ushered Detta into a chair then took a seat himself, followed by Layla across the table,

“Yeah, used to be a bathroom. I figured it would work better as a reading room. I can’t do this out there. Right hands, lets go.”

Detta placed her hand, palm up, in the center of the table. Marko removed his glove, tucked it into a jacket pocket and did the same. Layla grabbed one hand at a time, looked at it quickly and then looked back up at them.

“First off, you’re vampires.”

Marko’s free hand clamped down on Detta’s knee as she spoke. “Okay, and that means . . .” she started nonchalantly.

“You serious? It means you’re vampires. Suck blood, only come out at night. The whole shebang.”

“And your proof?” Marko asked through clenched teeth.

“Proof? Aside from the fact that your asshole just puckered so tightly it made a sucking noise? I can sense it. You, kid, are far too old to be this young and you . . .”

“Detta.”

“Detta, you are new to the game. You had to. It was this or death.”

Marko laughed. “You still can’t prove we’re vampires.”

Layla laughed this time. “No, but you can prove to me you are. We all know the truth. You’re just denying it. Go ahead. Come on. I won’t tell.”

Detta looked up at Marko, a question mark on her face. Marko’s face plainly stated no, they weren’t going to cave for this woman. But she broke into their thoughts.

“Please. You two think you’re the only vampires that come in here? Those white faces on St. Mark’s? It’s not all paint. Come on. Your secret’s safe with me. I swear. If I tell, you can kill me.”

They looked back at each other and Marko read Detta, her thoughts clear. She trusted this woman. She could see the truth in her. Marko couldn’t deny it. He saw it too. It was just, normally, out of the question to expose yourself to a mortal without bleeding them dry afterwards. It was Marko that slid into his vampire form. His reflexes were faster and if he needed to react, he could. Detta’s eyes bounced from Marko to Layla but her expression never faltered. She wasn’t surprised. He slid back to human form and Layla spoke again.

“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it? I thank you for not eating me.” Marko nodded reluctantly as Layla continued. “Now that that hurdle is out of the way we can move on.” She picked up each hand and examined the palm, studying it, extracting information. When she had examined both, she looked back up at them, her face expressionless. “Do you want the past first or the future first? Neither are very pleasant.”

Detta and Marko looked at each other and he answered. “Past.”

Layla nodded. “You’re looking for a reason for this connection you two have. A pull, a drive towards each other. When you met you had that feeling of fulfillment and when you turned her,” she looked to Marko, “you opened up the connection even more. You allowed yourselves to wander in and out of each other’s psyches looking for answers that you haven’t been able to find. That connection was broken recently but only for a short period of time. You two felt empty, despair, hollow, yes? But you got it back and all was well. But no one knows why this is. When Detta was human, she made you human, kid. You felt again. You had emotions that ran deeper than your next feed and it scared you. She couldn’t feel it to the extent that you could because you’re a vampire and for that you almost envied her. Now you both know what it’s like even though he—”

“Marko,” Marko interjected.

“Marko still feels it a little more because of his age. When you both were human, you had this hole that just couldn’t be filled. No matter who you bedded down with or who you thought you loved, you always felt something was missing and that you should be searching for it. I think Marko said it said it best when he said ‘what once was lost now is found.'”

Detta sighed but Marko’s face remained stoic, attempting not to show any emotion. “A lot of people say that,” he replied.

“They do but it’s just a little more poignant with you two. See, your souls are what we call mated. I guess you could say they’re tagged to attract each other. Every time it’s reanimated, it finds its mate at some point in its vessel’s life. That goes without question. What remains a variable is how long that meeting lasts. Once mated souls come together, they stay together until one, or both, loses its vessel.” Layla saw the contemplative look on Detta’s face at the word vessel. “It’s what us futuristically minded folk refer to as bodies as, you know, the bag of bones you’re sitting in now?”

“Thanks,” Detta answered sardonically.

“I can see the lives you two have had. Not all of them, but many.”

“Was it us,” Detta began. “You know, our bodies in those lives?”

Layla shook her head. “No. Different vessels, different names. Unfortunately Hollywood likes to fudge the concept of reincarnation. The only thing that you carry from life to life is your soul. That’s it. The looks, the names, even the personality, get left behind with the vessel. The pain you felt when your connection broke, it was equivalent to the death of the vessel. Each of your souls thought the other had died. For a soul to lose its mate is agony.”

“I know,” Marko and Detta whispered simultaneously.

Layla smiled. “But you know how that ended, don’t you? This life, though, is different from your last ones. You’re defying nature, making the vessel last longer than it should. Your time together will be longer, of course, and it will end the same way it always has. As backwards as it sounds, immortality isn’t forever.”

“So we’ll live a long time then?” Detta asked, excitement in her voice.

Layla’s smile dropped. “There’s not a lot more to tell of your past. Should I finish that?”

“Yes, please,” Marko answered. Detta turned to him but before she could speak, he cut her off. “I want to hear this.”

Layla turned to Detta. “You’ll get your answer in a moment. Now, with past lives, not everyone is fortunate enough to live a long, healthy life each cycle and you two are no exception. You’ve had a mix, both long and short lives, sometimes ending together, sometimes apart.”

“So we’ve been with each other in every life our souls have had?” Detta asked.

“That’s right. The whole concept of mated souls is that they mate. But you wouldn’t recognize yourselves if you saw yourselves in the past, as I’ve said already. You’ve had lives where you’ve died old, died young, one dies before the other, even one where you killed each other to escape punishment.”

“Punishment for what?” Marko frowned.

Layla smiled again. “Oh, just Christians. Anyway, I think I’ll tell you your most recent life together. You should know what you were doing before you came into your current one. It was Massachusetts in the 1600s—”

“Oh shit, I was burned at the stake, wasn’t I?” Detta jumped in.

Layla slumped her shoulders and frowned. “Talk about jumping the gun. You going to let me tell the story or what?” Her accent was more prominent when she was angry.

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“You’re too kind. Where was I? Right, Puritan Massachusetts. You two lived further inland, away from Salem and Boston, in a little village in the woods. You were religious folk but nothing like the rest. Your whole village was like that. They were able to see the hypocrisy that carried across the Atlantic so you all quietly went away to live on your own. You were happy.”

“Did you know our names?” Detta asked.

Layla shook her head. “Sorry. You had two daughters and three sons,” Detta cringed at the thought of the pain, “and they helped you farm. Detta, you were a seamstress, a quilter. People paid you for your work. Marko, you were a carpenter. You had managed the building of every house in your village on top of tilling the land. You were a loving family and you loved each other, all of the couples did. No orgies or anything but you guys were definitely having more sex than the rest of the colony combined, something that was forbidden under their religious law. To the rest, it was copulate to populate. For your sect, it went beyond that. It was a means to show love and bring yourselves pleasure.

“This made the men of the Bay Colony jealous and almost resentful although outwardly they were outraged. The women were disgusted, appalled that such devilish fornication was being had so close to them. They wanted something done. Because they all feared each other, they did.”

“Feared each other?” Marko asked.

Layla nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. Some actually believed the shit they were spitting but many didn’t but they acted the hypocrites to save their own asses. It was a means of survival.

“Anyway, the men put together a team, armed themselves, and went into the woods to lay siege on the village. It was small so you were easily outnumbered. At gunpoint everyone, men, women and children, were corralled into a barn. The men were held at one end while the women were made to strip. The colonial men saw them as nothing more than savage bitches, dogs, and so they should act as such. You were shot once,” she nodded to Marko, “in the leg, for trying to help. The men then decided to go hunting.” She shook her head. “And they called the Indians savages. They let the women run out of the barn, the female children too. Gave them a head start and then went after them. Some of the women were raped before they were killed. This included you and your daughters. Others, the hunters didn’t even want to touch them. All of the bodies were left in the woods for the elements to take of.

“The men put up more of a fight. A couple escaped, including your oldest son, but the rest died in that barn. The colonials set it on fire before they left. When that had burned down, they decimated the rest of the village, wiped it clean off the map. In a matter of weeks it looked like it had never existed.”

“What happened to my son?”

Detta looked to Marko when he spoke, his words soft yet strong. In this life, he wasn’t one for children but the idea that he had had a son in a former life sparked something in him, almost a swell of pride for his boy, the one he never knew.

“You taught him well. He made it to New York and was adopted by an Indian tribe. He became a liaison between the white man and the Indians. He married, had children, lived a long life but it was scarred by what had happened. He never forgot it.”

“And why did we need to know that life?” Detta asked.

Layla shrugged. “You didn’t need to know but it might explain some things for you two. More so for Detta. There are other lives, Marko, that would be a bit more enlightening for you.”

Marko turned to Detta. “You do have a tendency to get hunted, don’t you?”

“Cute. I think it explains David, actually, why we don’t click. I think he was the one that hunted me then too. It would explain the exposure thing I have with him, the fear of his rape, in any sense of the word.”

“What he did to you was rape. It just wasn’t sexual,” Marko interjected.

“I know.”

“Unresolved issues,” Layla intervened, “can carry on from life to life until they’re resolved. If you don’t work things out with this David now, chances are you’ll run into him again in the next life.”

Detta shuddered. She didn’t want him around now, let alone in the next life. “And what about our future?”

Layla’s face dropped; her look became forlorn. “There are things that I’m not allowed to foretell. It would be unethical. Yes, even we prophetically enabled have a code of ethics. That list is pretty big but I will say this. A crisis is coming. The ball has already started rolling on that path but the real trouble has yet to come. Do not warm to strangers.” She reached out across the table and grabbed both of Detta’s hands in her own, clasping them tightly. “You must remember, your blood is stronger now.” Layla smiled lightly before releasing her hands and standing up. “Well, I think that’s enough information for you to process for tonight. You can always come back but this session is done.”

Detta and Marko stood up as Layla ushered them out of the back room. They gave their thanks as they moved across the store and out into the ocean air. It was a lot to mull over but it was enlightening as well. At least now they had an answer for their connection. It wasn’t much but it was more than they originally had. Mated souls. Soul mates. A rather simple yet romanticized view behind their feelings for each other. Detta always had the notion that the concept of a soul mate was just someone that you knew to be perfect for you, just a feeling. Not such an intense physical and psychic connection. She guessed that she should consider herself lucky. Not many people had the opportunity to feel such drastic emotions.

“What did you think?” Marko asked when they had walked away from the store.

“Informative. Who da thunk that we were soul mates that were tortured in our last lives?”

Marko grabbed her hand and spun her around to face him, gripping his hands onto her waist to pull her in. He studied her features, her eyes, brushed his fingertips along her cheeks, across her lips. He bent his head down and his lips met hers. Now more than ever it felt as if they were the only two in the world. Everything else faded away when they came together. Marko pulled away first, looking back into her eyes before kissing her forehead. He reached down and grabbed her hand to lead her along the pier.

“You liked the idea of having a son, didn’t you?” she asked as they carried on.

“I did but there’s nothing I can do about it now. It’ll never happen. We infect, we don’t procreate.”

“Still, the thought that you had one made you proud.”

“Yeah but this is what I have now,” he said, shaking her hand in his. “It’s all I need. Maybe we’ll get a dog or something.”

“Right. A hound from Hell like Thorn?”

“I was thinking a wolfhound.”

“A cuddly little thing, then.”

Marko laughed and draped his arm around her shoulders. “You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“The group I was talking about earlier is right over there.”

Detta looked in the direction Marko pointed. A mass of black huddled along the railing, dotted with bright pink and blue. She spotted a few mohawks and a lot of make-up.

“Oh, the punks. The nonconformists conforming.”

The groups recognized Marko as they got closer. A couple of the girls looked disappointed at the sight of Detta. She only smiled broadly, her sedate appearance a stark contrast to the crowd. Marko was greeted with numerous phrases, his name, some pats on the back, before he introduced her.

“This is my girl, Detta, guys. She’s cool.”

“I hope so,” Detta replied sarcastically.

“Well, sometimes.”

Detta smirked and attempted to elbow him playfully in the ribs but he had edged out of the way.

“Holy shit, Detta?”

Detta looked up and glanced around the group for the voice who said her name.

“No fucking way. That can’t be you.”

The accent wasn’t as heavily stated as Layla’s but it was there, probably because he was excited. Detta could feel his heart pounding.

“I thought you were dead!”

There was a guy standing close to her now, a look of utter shock on his face. She had a feeling that she should have known him but nothing was clicking. His familiarity was almost on the tip of her tongue and when she had thought she’d come close to reaching it, it receded back even further. A contemplative look crossed Detta’s face before it fell into a look that said she had given up the search.

She looked to Marko who looked just as confused as she did before she spoke. “I’m sorry but am I supposed to know you?”

The guy looked anxious, grasping at straws in an attempt to get her to understand. “You fucking serious? Detta, it’s Jackie. You know, your brother?”


	16. Family Ties

Her brother. Her brother from her human life? She knew her brothers now but this guy? He looked like all the other punks she killed in Santa Carla. He was dressed in all black, heavy black eyeliner, his hair spiked in a mohawk with a blue stripe running straight down the top. His fingernails were black and he wore lots of leather but they were in the shapes of cuffs and collars.

Detta searched her memory again, back beyond her rebirth and to her life in New York. Everything was hazy, covered in a thick layer of smog. No faces were really imprinted, just silhouettes against a brown fog. Then she had a flash, a microsecond of film zipped before her eyes; the tracest of memories left. There was an older man and woman, two boys; teenagers, two girls; elementary school age and another younger boy, maybe around the age of five. The younger of the two girls, Detta realized, was her. The resemblance was unmistakable. The rest had to have been her siblings and her parents but the names escaped her, except for Jack. Jackie. But which one was he? He didn’t look to be older than her, at least not from what she could tell that was hidden under the make-up. Especially judging by this group of friends, this guy was her little brother.

“What, you get hit in the head or something? What’s wrong with you?” Jackie was getting impatient and worry started to creep into his voice. He wanted answers.

Marko was getting shifty under the gazes of the group but Detta’s voice eased his, however slightly. “Jackie. Yes, sorry. I haven’t been myself lately. Amnesia.” It was like speaking to a stranger, making up excuses to get out of a sticky situation.

“Hold on,” Marko said to the group as he grabbed Detta’s arm and walked her away. He stopped her next to him, keeping their backs to their dinner. “I didn’t know he was your brother,” Marko whispered through gritted teeth.

“As if I did! I barely remember him!” Detta hoarsely whispered back. “Being a vampire makes you forget your human past, doesn’t it?”

Marko nodded. “But you’re not supposed to run into your past!”

“You sound like I planned this! How was I supposed to know?”

“They have to die, Detta. You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Weren’t they going to anyway?”

“This fucks things up now, though. You have a connection to your prey. I should kill him.”

“Why?”

“Because you two share blood. You could start remembering if you feed on him. It would be like killing one of us. The remorse, the guilt, it could destroy you. Let me do it.”

“Fine. I don’t mind. But Marko, it feels like I’ve just met him for the first time. He’s just another kill to me. His name means nothing.”

“But it will if you feed on him. Let me take care of him. I can’t let you take him. You’re too young and it could destroy you.”

“Are we taking the whole group or just a few?”

“Your brother, maybe three others. I wouldn’t want to do any more.”

“We should get back. I’m sure they’re getting restless.”

“What the hell you guys doing?” Jackie yelled to them.

“And I was right. We break up the group, feed and head back to the hotel. I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

Marko kissed her before they both turned and walked back to the group. There was a part of Detta that wanted to remember Jackie and her human family. It was just a dream now, one that was fading with each passing day. But in the end she didn’t remember. He might as well been someone she had passed on the street that she happened to recall. She felt no connection to him other than a potential meal. Detta wondered what would happen if vampires didn’t have that blocking mechanism, if they couldn’t be rid of their human emotions and pasts. The suffering would probably be great. She could imagine vampires taking their own lives in grief. No wonder Marko never regretted a feed. She didn’t think it was possible, not as a vampire. It would be like a human regretting eating a hamburger, the guilt imposed by that slaughtered cow unbearable. The notion was ridiculous.

It still didn’t keep her from trying. She searched every corner of her brain but she was only met with haze and shapeless figures. Every once in a while she’d get a flash of something that could have been her past but it disappeared faster than she could process it. Max was right. She really wasn’t the same person anymore. The more she aged as a vampire, the more detached she became from her human self and humanity. Maybe it was all for the better. As a human, she might not have been able to get over the attempts on her life coupled with the fact that Ted was still alive. It would have eaten her up inside. Being with Marko, her life in Santa Carla wouldn’t have been half of what it is now without him but with him, had none of those circumstances existed, her ultimatum would have been the same—turn or be killed. At least she’d like to think.

Marko sent the majority of the group off using his vampire abilities, making sure to implant false memories and wipe away the ones that would be incriminating towards them. It was the only way. She was able to make Ted do what she wanted but he was aware of his lack of choice. Marko told her earlier that it was a skill that needed to be mastered in order to override them completely. Do funny things with human minds. Why couldn’t he just erase Jackie’s mind and they be on their way? Perhaps the trail was too long, the familial connection too strong. She didn’t know and, at this point, her hunger was starting to override her logical thought and her care.

Jackie tried talked to her as his sister as Marko lured them away from the bright lights of the amusement park but she only returned with subtle groans of acknowledgement. He spoke of their parents, how devastated they were to find out their daughter had died and how happy they were going to be to find out it was all a mistake. Their sister was starting medical school, en route to becoming a pediatrician. Their two older brothers, one already with a family before Detta left and now the other just started one out. His daughter was named Benedetta. Jackie needlessly pointed out that he was the black sheep, not wanting to go to school or start a family. He didn’t care about any of that. He just wanted to live, whatever that entailed.

Still, her thoughts were empty. Jackie didn’t exist to her before tonight and she was increasingly wishing that the night would end because of him. She glanced over at Marko and gave him an uneasy look, one that said ‘lets finish this already.’ She no longer wanted to be around this guy that called himself her brother, nor any of the other punks. Marko was able to wheedle the two boys away under the guise of a drug buy but he had to turn up his power of persuasion a little higher on Jackie to detach him from Detta. He finally succumbed and she was left with the only other girl in their group—a chick with spiked pink hair, a nose ring and a PVC outfit. She creaked when she walked. The girl, Detta didn’t care to get her name, tried to converse with her but Detta afforded her the same responses she gave to Jackie.

Detta looked around them. A single streetlight flickered about a hundred yards off and Marko had already disappeared down an alley with Jackie and the other guy. Now in the bowels of Coney Island, where no one thought to go, where no one now saw, Detta made her move. The girl didn’t even have time to scream as Detta grabbed her by the throat and silenced any sound that considered issuing from her body. Giving another quick glance around, she lifted herself and the girl into the air and out over the water. The girl’s eyes widened when Detta slid into fang, her acrylic nails feebly clawing at the iron fist gripping her throat. Detta saw the girl’s eyes bulge but paid them no mind as she dove into her neck, tearing at her flesh and draining her punk life from her body. There was some kicking in an attempt to get away but Detta merely issued a mocking chuckle from her throat as she drank greedily of the girl’s life. The girl finally fell limp and Detta released her body into the ocean below, a mile or two from the shore. Should her body wash up, it would be unrecognizable when it did.

She returned to their separating point and she could still hear Marko in the alley drinking. The boys must have put up a fight if it was taking him this long. She walked to him; mentally telling him it was just her to stave off panic. By the looks of it, he’d finished Jackie first; the body lay in a heap at Marko’s feet as the other boy dangled from his mouth. Detta walked up to her dead brother and squat down next to him. The tear in his neck glistened with still-fresh blood. His eyes were just as wide as the girl’s were and now just as lifeless. A small pool of blood formed just under his head and Detta touched a finger to it. It was quickly going cold. What would happen if she tasted just that small amount that rested on her finger? Would it be as bad as Marko said it would be? She sniffed at the blood and it triggered a sense of familiarity in her, those hazes in her thoughts started to come into focus. Just before her tongue touched her finger, a hand grabbed onto her arm to stop her. Marko’s mouth enveloped Detta’s finger to be rid of the blood.

“Not even a drop. What happened when you smelled it?”

“I saw fuzzy outlines before. They started to come into focus.”

Marko nodded. “You stay away from your human family. I don’t think you should come back here for a while, not until you’re older, when you can better handle it. Maybe when you know your parents are dead. It’s just too risky now. I had to block you out when I fed, still have to now, because of his blood. I need to feed again. So do you.”

“I let you know I was coming—”

Marko shook his head. “I sensed you but I couldn’t read you. I didn’t know what you would see if I opened up our connection. Go feed again. I’ll meet you back at the hotel. I’ll cheer you up,” he added slyly.

Detta smiled back as Marko brushed her check with his hand. He wouldn’t kiss her because of Jackie’s blood. She felt empty, maybe confused. She couldn’t tell. Her human brother was lying dead at her feet and she felt nothing for him and couldn’t tell if she should or not. Her temptation still pulled her towards Jackie’s blood. She wanted to know what it felt like to be human again, if only just for a second but it wouldn’t happen. She trusted Marko. He’d been right each time and she could sense her destruction in Jackie’s veins. She heeded Marko’s warning and, instead, helped him dispose of the bodies. They fed again on their own and resigned to meet back at their hotel for their final day of sleep in New York City. It was time to go home.


	17. All You Need Is L -

They lay in bed, their naked bodies pressed against each other, Detta’s head resting on Marko’s chest, his arms wrapped around her. If she were human, it would have been a restless sleep, thoughts of Jackie flickering through her head. The image of his face was already fading but his name lingered longer. Marko sensed her contemplation and eased her mind.

“It all gets easier as you age. You still have small pieces of humanity left. Those will be gone eventually.”

Detta frowned and looked up into his face. “But I don’t think I want it to be gone.”

Marko shook his head. “The vicious cycle of humanity. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s going to fade whether you like it or not and when it’s gone, you won’t miss it. It’ll be like it never existed.”

“How long did it take for yours to disappear?”

“Ten years, about. Time passes so quickly for us. Looking back on it, it almost feels instant. Your humanity is what makes you human. Makes sense, right? When you’re a vampire, you’re no longer human. We don’t need it so it cycles out.” He looked at her face but still saw that inkling of emotion, that something for Jackie. “You’ll forget about him before you even have a chance to remember him. Your connection to your family is gone. There’s hardly even any blood left.”

“How do you keep yourself from running into your human family?”

“Leaving is the best option but your life changes when you’re a vampire. The chances of running into them after you’ve turned are rare, especially if the city is big enough. Besides, I think we have a built in device that keeps us away.”

“Yeah, well, mine didn’t work too good last night.”

“Nothing’s foolproof and like I said, you’re still young, still learning and still adjusting. Just let it be and usually it tends to work itself out.”

Detta stretched in his arms, arching her back so that her front pushed against his. Marko pushed back and rolled her onto her back, putting the full of his weight on her body. She dropped her arms onto his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist, inviting him. She licked his lips with the tip of her tongue before pressing onto them. Marko leaned into her, squeezing a moan from her mouth. She nipped at his neck, drawing a few drops of blood that he urged her to lick off. He had told her the previous night that his second feed diluted the first; his blood was safe for her to consume. She bit her thumb, making a gouge that she drew down her body, creating a trail for Marko to follow. He gladly obliged and ended burying his head between her legs. Detta moaned, her breathing starting to become labored. She arched into his tongue, grabbing onto his hair but he didn’t rescind. She bit into her lip, drawing blood that trickled down her chin. Climax came as Marko rapidly slipped her onto her stomach, shoving her legs apart with his knees. He wound his hand into her hair and wrenched her head back. His mouth attacked hers, devouring the blood on her lips before he lowered himself to her neck. He entered her as he bit, her wail echoing off the wall. He wanted her, all of her. His every thought was about consuming her. He pounded into her, even as he came he didn’t want to relent but his anatomy said otherwise. He lowered himself onto her back, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and resting his lips on her head.

“What’s the vampire equivalent of love?” her muffled voice asked.

Marko hesitated for a moment before answering. “I don’t know. I don’t think it exists.”

“Really,” Detta said, her face turned to him, her eyebrow raised. “In all of history, a vampire has never loved?”

Marko laughed. “I’m sure they have but I think you’re still remembering the human emotion and what it felt like then.”

“So what do I feel for you, then?”

“The same I feel for you.”

“And that is?”

“Our connection.”

“So I’ll just go around telling you ‘I connection you.’ Is that alright?”

Marko laughed a hearty laugh. “People will think we have a weird fetish for the game. Does it need a name?”

“Need? No, it doesn’t need one. But something. Come on. Satisfy the remaining human in me.”

“I feel you. That means everything. I just don’t have a concept of love anymore. You do because it hasn’t faded away yet. It’s just a word anyway.”

Detta rolled out from under him and propped herself up on her elbow. Their eyes locked. She brushed her fingertips along his check as he closed his eyes to revel in the feeling. She combed her fingers through his hair, pulling him towards her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her tight to him. She ran her hands along Marko’s back, grasping at his skin. She smelled him, she lived him, she breathed him. She could sense him when he wasn’t around, their souls in a constant union. She felt him. It was an appropriate word for them. It meant so much more than the human notion of love although that concept still lingered in her mind. Detta lowered her lips to his ear, lightly brushing it.

“I feel you,” she whispered. “Always.”

She could feel Marko nod as he held her tighter, their vampire souls melding into one.

****

**vVv**

“Laddie drank from the bottle,” Detta said as the stewardess walked away.

Her connection to him was gradually getting stronger albeit it was still weak. Laddie was fighting it even though he didn’t know what ‘it’ really was and really didn’t even realize he was fighting. His emotions were mixed. He knew what he should want, what was expected of him to want but this something new contradicted all of that. Star was helping him the most, tending to his questions. She, of course, saw her own brother in him and wanted nothing more than to shield him from the evils of the group. Paul finally had the little brother he wanted and Dwayne, while not as adamant as Star, was also Laddie’s protector nonetheless.

Marko nodded. “I know. I can feel him. I think it was a mistake to let him in. He’s too young, awkward. I don’t think he’d ever have the strength. David was careless but we all had a hand in it. We should have been paying more attention.”

“Do you think he’ll get in the way?”

Marko shrugged. “Honestly I don’t think he’ll make it. Dwayne would probably let him feed but Star?” He shook his head. “Those two’ll starve before they turn.”

“You know, anorexia plagues people of all ages and both sexes too. Men can be just as susceptible but if you get them the right help, you can stop it before it’s too late.”

Detta and Marko gaped up at the head bobbing over the headrest in front of them. A bubbly, blonde forty-something stared back at them, a firm yet happy smile on her face. “I’m willing to help in any way that I can—”

“Sorry but we weren’t talking about an eating disorder,” Detta replied curtly.

“Really? I heard the word ‘starve.'”

“Yes, well, that’s what happens when you listen in on conversations you have no business hearing. You don’t get the whole story.” Her face was emotionless, a frown attempting to push its way to her forehead but she fought it back.

“Well. I was just trying to help.”

“There’s nothing to help,” Detta stated bluntly as the woman huffed and turned back around. She rolled her eyes and shook her head as she returned her gaze to Marko who was already looking at her and shrugged. “Gotta love it.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Right. Lack of privacy is right up there on my favorites list, right next to wooden stakes and sunlight.”

“We’re on a plane. What do you expect? Hey, I thought you said stakes didn’t work.”

“I never said they didn’t, just that it wasn’t the only way.”

“Got it. Sorry. Forgot my class notes at home.”

“Wiseass.”

“Ouch.”

They had cut their flight back to San Jose close. They only had an hour to get back to Santa Carla before sunrise. Marko found a cab waiting outside the terminal and paid the driver enough for three trips, told him to rush it and gave him Detta’s address, both as a destination and a place to forward any tickets he may get in the process. Detta started to protest but Marko silenced her. Now wasn’t the time to argue. He would survive the first rays of dawn but Detta, her age continued to work against her.

With mere minutes to spare, they arrived just in time to make it through the front door, heaving the luggage onto the living room floor. Detta was able to get a glimpse of a bluing sky streaked with orange through the trees before Marko slammed the door behind them. It had been years since she’d seen that much of the day. She almost missed it.

The dawning sun began to take its toll on her internal clock and her knees buckled. Her eyelids started to close involuntarily. She grabbed onto Marko’s arm for support but wasn’t able to remain on her feet. Fast approaching her condition, Marko gathered her into his arms and struggled up the stairs, fighting against the sleep that so desperately wanted to overcome him. He collapsed halfway onto the mattress, heaving Detta’s body all the way on. She had already succumbed to sleep; she never had a chance to fight. He stripped himself of his jacket, dragged his own body onto the bed and collapsed next to her, his arm draping over her. They lay flat on the bed, Detta on her back, Marko on his side. He got one final glimpse of her sleeping profile before his leadened eyelids closed on the day, letting sleep overtake him.


	18. Just the Beginning

“Has he gotten any better?” Detta asked as she entered the cave.

It had been two weeks since her and Marko’s trip to New York but neither of them had divulged any information as to what had happened. None of them needed to know about their souls or their pasts together so they both kept those memories locked away tight. Dwayne and Paul might have cared about her story of Jackie but she decided to not waste her time or her inhuman breath. It was hardly worth it to her. She doubted it would be worth it to them.

David wanted to know about Ted, details. She wasn’t about to give him full disclosure. All she told him was that there was now one less waste sucking air on the planet. He wanted to know if anyone saw her, if she was careful not to give herself away, and so on. She reassured him that SWAT wouldn’t be showing up any time soon and to unclench. David always seemed to get wound up if things didn’t go his way or if he lacked control over something. One of many flaws of his. He threatened to read her mind and she told him to fuck off, that Marko had taught her to lock away memories so that no one else could get to them. He looked angry and defeated at this but she didn’t care. There were things that she was allowed to keep from others. Perhaps she kept more from David than anyone else but that didn’t bother her. He was the last person she wanted wading through her privacy considering her past with him. He had enough leverage as it was with her. He didn’t need to know that he tormented her in another life too.

Dwayne shrugged. “He’s getting along better. He wanted to know what’s causing the pain.”

“And do you tell him?” Detta asked as she sat on the couch next to him.

Dwayne nodded. “I can’t lie to him. He deserves to know what’s happening to him.”

Detta had been asking Dwayne for updates on Laddie since she got back. At one point he showed his annoyance at her pestering him, as it was her third asking in two days, by snapping at her but he eventually resigned to use of muscle memory when replying to her. Paul was the one that told her how they got Laddie to drink. David had given him an ultimatum: drink or die. Thankfully Laddie’s a smart kid and knew that David would kill him if he didn’t do what he said. Detta tensed at the notion of David forcing the blood down Laddie’s throat, the mere mental image making her cringe but she was repeatedly reassured that Laddie took the bottle and drank from it himself.

Just as Dwayne had become his big brother, Star had become his big sister. She kept him as protected from the boys as she could, although this created a rift between her and Dwayne. She didn’t like Laddie being around them at all but Dwayne wouldn’t have that. Because of Laddie, they hardly spoke to each other. Paul was the one that kept the peace between the two. Star saw her brother in Laddie and it was something she latched on to and didn’t want to lose a second time. She felt that if she let the boys take him, they’d turn him and she’d be by herself again. Not only had she not fed yet, Laddie hadn’t either. She wouldn’t let herself and she wouldn’t let him. She coached him on how to control the hunger. Detta wondered where she had learned that since none of them had taught her. She probably taught herself and Detta realized how much stronger she was as a half vampire for resisting. She knew she wouldn’t be able to do it. But because of that, Star and Laddie were both a little sluggish. Nothing noticeable to a human but they were both moving slower than what they should. Malnourished vampires.

“For someone you never really cared about, you certainly are showing a lot of concern,” Dwayne said, his face stoic.

“Yeah, well. It’s not that I didn’t give a shit. I just didn’t want to become a babysitter. But that doesn’t mean I want to play patty cake with him either.”

“No one’s asking you to.”

“I’m just . . . worried, I guess. Not like Star or you but it just doesn’t feel right with Laddie, that we’ve done something wrong in turning him.”

“So he should have died?”

“That’s the thing. No. So what then?”

“Then you put the choice in his hands,” Paul chimed in, walking up to sit on the fountain edge across from them. “You take the decision off your back and put it on his.”

“But he’s only ten!”

Paul shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. He made his decision. Honestly I would have done the same thing.”

“You did do the same thing,” Dwayne said, his face carrying a look of defeated comprehension.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t ten when it happened.”

“Duh,” Detta added to the conversation.

Paul smiled and nudged her shoulder before getting up to walk the room. Detta smiled after him before returning her gaze to Dwayne.

“David still ignoring him?”

“Yup. Star usually grabs him before he has a chance to ask David anything.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Dwayne shrugged. “David tells him to go ask someone else. You know, if you came around more, you’d know all of these details.”

“I know, I know. I may be a vampire but I still do have a job.”

“You know you don’t need it, right?”

“You know there’s still Maria, right? I’m not going to up and quit. He pays me too good to do that.”

“Right. Have you seen her lately?”

“Who, Maria? I saw her tonight. Why?”

He shrugged. “No reason.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

“That’s not the word I’d use but lets just say I think she’s a lot more interesting than any other prospective meal I’ve come across.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Max would kill me so don’t worry. She’s just a human I can deal with.”

“Why don’t you ask her out then? It couldn’t hurt, could it?”

Dwayne just looked at her, searching her face for something but she didn’t know what. He made to say something but stopped himself before he stood up and walked away. Detta watched him leave, not wanting to delve into his mind. He wanted to be alone right now and she could feel that emanating from his body. He walked toward his private nook in the cave and disappeared into the cavern.

“Detta,” Marko called to her from the cave entrance.

She looked as he motioned with his head for them to leave. She grabbed her jacket from the seat next to her and without saying anything to anyone, walked with Marko out of the cave. Instead of getting on his bike, he grabbed her hand and led her to the edge of the cliff. She hated flying. She still hadn’t mastered it but she figured, being a vampire and all, she had all the time in the world to learn. He took off first, nearly dragging her with him before she found her balance and flew on her own accord. They weren’t in the air long; minutes maybe, tearing through fog, before Marko started to lead her down, descend on some jutting cliffs below. He landed them on a ledge just big enough for the two of them. He sat down first, his back against the salted stone, and he motioned for Detta to sit between his bent legs, a knee on either side of her, her back against his chest. Even though she had her own jacket on, she burrowed herself into his as he wrapped his arms around her body. He placed his cheek against hers, cold skin to cold skin, as they both looked out to sea, past the rolling fog and towards the stars in the distance.

She felt his lips brush against her ear as he exhaled. “Promise you’ll never leave me.”

She pulled her cheek from his and looked back at him, into his eyes, her own questioning. Detta’s brow furrowed.

“You’ve never talked like that before,” she whispered, her voice carrying over the crashing waves.

“I know but I thought I should, just this once.”

“Why now?”

Marko shrugged. “Seemed like good timing.”

Detta cocked an eyebrow. “Are you going soft on me?”

He cocked an eyebrow back. “Are you ruining a perfectly good moment? We don’t get many, not here. Throw me a bone, will you?”

Detta smirked when she saw the semi-playful look on his face. “I promise. What about you? You promise never to leave me?”

“Now, you see the contract doesn’t work like that. I think the harem would get lonely.”

“Cute!”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Detta looked at him skeptically. “Promise.”

“Why do I feel like we should pinky swear or something?”

“How about this, kiss me now and I won’t call you schmoopy in front of the guys.”

“Schmoop—”

Detta was cut off by Marko’s lips pressing onto hers. Her fingers wound their way to his hair, holding his head in place, his arms tightening their hold on her. Marko pulled back, gracing her lips with a few soft pecks.

“You don’t call me schmoopy anyway,” she whispered.

“I could start.”

“You could also grow a vagina.”

“That . . . would be interesting.”

“Don’t call me schmoopy.”

“You really think I would? I like my balls attached, thanks.”

She kissed him again before settling back into him. Marko traced his hand down her left arm, grabbing her hand when he got to it. He played with each of her fingers as Detta watched aimlessly. She felt him shift under her as he reached into his pocket. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back onto his shoulder, breathing in the mix of sea air and the scent of Marko. Then she felt him slide something onto her middle finger. She frowned before she opened her eyes and looked down. On her finger was a gold ring, rubies embedded around it. Detta lifted her hand to get a closer look. Pristine rubies, twenty-four carat gold. She smiled and leaned her head back again, intertwining her fingers with his.

“Who’d you grave rob this from?”

She could feel him laugh. “A widow I fed from a few months ago. She didn’t need it anymore.”

“I like it.”

“I’m glad.”

“So what do I—”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t want anything?”

“I want you.”

Detta chuckled. “Besides that.”

She could feel him breathing into her neck, his tongue flicking at her vein, his teeth nipping at her skin.

“This is all I want,” he said before biting into her.

Detta moaned as Marko drank. She wound her arm up around his head, wanting to bring him closer to her body. One hand went up her dress, teasing her. The other traveled up her body, caressing her breasts, wanting to tear the material away. He pulled his fangs out of her throat and she turned around to straddle his lap. She returned the gesture, sinking her teeth into his neck, savoring the taste she adored so much.

Despite the teasing and the want, their tryst didn’t go any further on that cliff. Instead, after their exchange of blood, they sat on the ledge holding each other, almost afraid to let the other go. The sense of closeness, of their souls mating, danced through their shared blood. It was an insatiable want, rather a need, for each other that moved between them. They sat on that ledge for the remainder of the night in relative silence, before the lightening sky foretold of the coming dawn. Only then did they retreat back to the cave for their usual day of rest with their vampire family, gathering energy for the coming night. They were unstoppable, the vampires of the night, brothers and sisters of blood. Detta went to sleep that morning with a new outlook, a new perspective. This was just the beginning.


End file.
